SERMONS, 



Rev. EPHRAIM PEABODY, D.D., 

MINISTER OF KING'S CHAPEL, BOSTON. 



4-, 




WITH A MEMOIR. 



BOSTON: 
CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY. 
1857. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S57, by 
Crosby, Xichols, axd Compact, 
the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



CAMBRIDGE: 
METCALF AND COMPANY, PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

MEMOIR ix 

SERMON I. 

CHRIST OUR LIFE 1 

SERMON II. 

WORLDLINESS 16 

SERMON III. 

MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL ... 33 

SERMON IV. 

A VOICE BEHIND THEE 56 

SERMON V. 

STAND IN THY LOT 72 

SERMON VI. 

THE TRANSFIGURATION . . 90 

SERMON VII. 

THY STATUTES, OUR SONGS 103 



iv CONTENTS. 



SERMON VIII. 

NATURE WITH AND WITHOUT A REVELATION OF IM3IOR- 

TALITY . . . . 118 

SEEMON IX. 

PROVIDENCE • • 131 

SEEMON X. 

ETERNAL LIFE 144 

SEEMON XL 

WATCHING WITH CHRIST 159 

SEEMON XII. 

REALITIES '. • • 170 

SEEMON XIII. 

THE WEARY AND HEAVY LADEN . . . . . . 1$5 

SEEMON XIV. 

PERSONALITY 197 

SEEMON XV. 

UNRESERVED OBEDIENCE 210 

SEEMON XVI. 

A PASSING WORLD LEAVES PERMANENT IMPRESSIONS . 226 

SEEMON XVII. 

AUTHORITY . . . 240 

SEEMON XVIII. 

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST 254 



CONTENTS. V 
SERMON XIX. 

THE RAISING OF LAZARUS . . . . . . 268 

SERMON XX, 

ON WHICH SIDE ? . V 282 

SERMON XXI. 

CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY 296 

SERMON XXII. 

THE MEMORIAL OF VIRTUE . . . . . . .310 

SERMON XXIII. 

STILLNESS OF MIND . 327 

SERMON XXIV. 

OPPORTUNITY AND PREPARATION . . . . . . 340 

SERMON XXV. 

IDLE WORDS 354 

SERMON XXVI. 

THE PRESSURE OF DUTIES 367 

SERMON XXVII. 

CONFIDENCE IN GOD 378 

a* 



M EMOI R. 



MEMOIR. 



When a man is removed from among us by 
death, who was remarkable for the clearness and 
strength of his mind, the delicacy of his percep- 
tions, and the warmth of his heart, we feel the im- 
pulse to perpetuate the memory of these attractive 
qualities among those who knew him, notwithstand- 
ing the impossibility of conveying to others any 
exact idea of the charm of his manners, the impres- 
siveness of his discourse, or the persuasive power of 
his example. Such a man was Ephraim Peabody ; 
and it is with such an instinctive desire that we sit 
down, not to write a memoir of him, in the com- 
mon sense of the word, but to record the sentiments 
he excited, the affection he inspired, the unfading 
brightness which surrounds his memory ; to speak 
of his character, and the deeds and habits which ex- 
emplified it ; and to testify to a new proof of the 
power of goodness guided by wisdom and inspired 
by affection. His was always the same character, 
developed in different degrees according to his ad- 
vance in life ; but there was no period, from the be- 
ginning to the end, when he was not remarkably 



X 



MEMOIR. 



intelligent, amiable, modest, and conscientious. His 
organization, both internal and external, mental and 
corporeal, was large, strong, and, at the same time, 
delicate to a remarkable degree. He does not seem 
to have been subjected so much to the painful task 
of correcting even early faults, as to the pleasanter 
process of the gradual unfolding of the instinctive 
right tendencies of childhood and youth. Born in 
picturesque New Hampshire, he always exhibited 
that fondness for natural beauty which is a mark of 
fine perceptions and purity of taste, and which led 
him, in later years, to the development and cultiva- 
tion of a power of imagination that exhibited itself 
in the forms of poetry. His education was con- 
ducted not merely in schools and colleges, but also 
in the fields and woods, while he was engaged in 
the enjoyment of the beauties of external nature, be- 
fore he could understand the modes in which they 
were produced. 

One of the earliest anecdotes related of him is 
that his instructor found him one day gazing at the 
sunset sky, so peculiarly splendid in our atmosphere, 
with such attention, that he seemed not to hear a 
question that was asked him, or at least did not 
reply at once. Presently he said he was " looking 
to see an angel peep over," — almost the idea which 
was expressed afterwards, or, it may be, at the very 
time, on occasion of the same sunset, by another 
finely touched mind : — - 

" 'Mid yon rich cloud's voluptuous pile, 
Methinks some spirit of the air 
Might rest to gaze below awhile A 
Then turn to bathe and revel there." 



MEMOIR. 



xi 



In the retirement of Wilton he passed the opening 
years of life, enjoying the privileges of early educa- 
tion which are the birthright of every New England 
child, till he was removed first to Byfield, and then 
to Exeter Academy, which' was under the charge of 
his uncle. There were no peculiar advantages for 
him, of course, but he used those which were com- 
mon to all the pupils in such a manner that he reaped, 
from his first studies, those habits of diligence and 
observation which are the best fruits of early train- 
ing. The interest and influence of his Uncle Abbot 
were kindly and constantly exerted in his early edu- 
cation, in the formation of those habits of attention 
and application which never fail to result in the best 
development of natural gifts. In college he pursued 
the same steady course, and became known for the 
equanimity and gentleness of disposition, and the 
intellectual ability, that were characteristic of him 
from his earliest to his latest days. He was distin- 
guished, too, for the poetic talent, which showed it- 
self in his intellectual character as well as in his verse. 

Upon graduating at Bowdoin College, where he 
won the regard of such men as Professors Cleveland, 
Packard, and Newman, he removed to Cambridge, 
for the purpose of pursuing theological studies, and 
completing the necessary preparation for the profes- 
sion he had chosen. There he had an opportunity 
of forming and cultivating an acquaintance with 
some of those sympathetic minds to whom his at- 
tachment lasted as long as his life. If not exactly 
college friendships, they were friendships of youth, 
and it is no common happiness when such affections 



Xll 



MEMOIR. 



remain, as in this instance, through the trials and 
changes of life, to its maturity and its close. He 
had early formed those opinions which led him 
to the choice of Cambridge as the place for his 
theological preparation ; or rather he determined to 
think and judge for himself, in matters of opinion, 
without being biassed by mere authority, so far as 
this independence is really practicable without de- 
generating into disregard of those who are entitled 
to respect. It is not always easy to decide what 
would be submission to despotism, and what would 
be rebellion against lawful influence, in matters of 
intellectual cultivation ; but few men have deter- 
mined for themselves more conscientiously, or more 
wisely, than Mr, Peabody. He always spoke with 
gratitude of the influence of Mr. Norton, in inculcat- 
ing the independence of mind, and thoroughness of 
research upon every important subject, which were 
characteristic of his instructor, and which have left 
their impress not only upon Cambridge, but upon 
the community of which Cambridge is a part. At 
the same time, he perceived and sympathized with 
the deep reverence with which Mr. Norton regarded 
the great problems of life ; and no feeling of either 
was stronger than dislike of everything approaching 
to levity in connection with subjects of such intense 
interest. 

With his theological studies at Cambridge ended 
his preparation for entering on that scene of sever- 
er discipline and more anxious toil, the advanced 
school of the world for children of a larger growth, 
who are responsible to no human teacher, and 



MEMOIR. 



X111 



who must learn for themselves the hard lessons of 
experience. But he came to it with a mind and 
heart as well prepared as they could be by diligence, 
by a peculiar talent for observation, and by habitual 
faithfulness to a conscience, not only void of offence, 
but jealously watchful over his own conduct and ten- 
dencies. This may be said with confidence by those 
not familiar with him at that period, because it is 
clearly impossible to possess such delicacy in that 
infallible guide as he exhibited in all his later life, 
if it had not been carefully cultivated from his very 
first consciousness of responsibility. At the same 
time, sensitive and delicate as it was, his conscience 
had nothing morbid in it. It was quick to perceive 
the moral bearing of actions, not because it was dis- 
ordered, but because it was sound, and because he 
chose to be under its guidance. 

He passed some time — nearly a year — at Mead- 
ville in Pennsylvania, where he began to preach, and 
to exercise those powers of observation, of judgment, 
and of expression, which he cultivated with assiduity 
ever after. Nothing was more remarkable in him 
than' the diligence and faithfulness with which he 
sought to improve the faculties intrusted to him, 
unless it were the singular modesty with which he 
declined accepting situations which were offered to 
him, but for which he thought himself not sufficiently 
prepared. He was fondly and highly appreciated, 
not merely by the more cultivated members of so- 
ciety there, but by the rural population as well, to 
whom his services were sometimes rendered in the 
fields or the quiet grove. 

b 



xiv 



MEMOIR. 



From Meadville he went to Cincinnati in 1831, 
not then the great city and mart that it has since 
become, but comparatively an outpost of civilization, 
with only a portion of the wealth and cultivation 
which now make it conspicuous among the great 
centres of movement in the world. A small Unitari- 
an congregation found themselves there, surrounded 
by the various sects which are called Orthodox, and 
who agree in few things so entirely, as in considering 
Unitarianism a dangerous heresy. 

The peculiar difficulties which often surround a 
congregation, entertaining different opinions from 
those of the mass of the population about them, 
were by no means so great in Cincinnati as has 
often happened elsewhere. There was no embit- 
tered controversy, nor unamiable personality. Dif- 
ferent sects treated each other with respect, and 
exchanged mutual good offices ; and Mr. Peabody's 
influence and character were not adapted to dimin- 
ish a state of feeling so mutually honorable. He 
lived on terms of the pleasantest nature with the 
principal Orthodox clergymen, and especially with 
the now venerable Dr. Beecher. The greatest 
difficulty of his situation was the impossibility of 
procuring exchanges, rendering the care of a parish 
a matter of vast and wearing labor ; though still 
not enough to prevent Mr. Peabody from superin- 
tending the publication of a religious magazine, and 
engaging in a literary association of the young men 
with whom he was intimately acquainted. 

His congregation was small, his compensation 
moderate, his toil and his success were great. He 



MEMOIR. 



XV 



improved himself not merely by his more serious 
studies, and his professional labors, which, in his 
position, must have been incessant and wearing, 
but by cultivating those important arts of elocution 
and composition which have so much influence on 
the usefulness of a minister. His poetical tenden- 
cies would show themselves in occasional pieces for 
the magazines, and in the illustrations he felt at lib- 
erty to use in the pulpit ; and though he kept them 
under restraint, his people would have been quite 
willing he should have given them the reins a little 
more freely. 

His residence at Cincinnati was an eventful period 
of his life. There he began the real, toilsome service 
of a parish minister ; there he was married ; * there he 
was exposed to the terrors of the Asiatic cholera, a 
new, strange, and uncontrollable malady ; and there 
he labored with such assiduity, in writing both for 
the pulpit and the magazines, as to forget the claims 
of nature to moderation and care, and to sow the 
seeds of that delicacy which soon developed itself in 
serious disorder of the physical frame. 

He is remembered in Cincinnati with all the af- 
fectionate interest which can be won by faithfulness 
to duty, by cheerfulness in difficulty and toil, by sub- 
mission in affliction, by kindness to all about him, 
and by the interchange of affection with the few with 
whom he could be intimately associated. His preach- 

*To Miss Derby, of Salem, at that time visiting Cincinnati; — a 
union productive of all the happiness which can follow from affection, 
sympathy, mutual griefs and joys, and from the common care of chil- 
dren who repay all anxieties by the promise of futurity. 



xvi 



MEMOIR. 



ing there was always, from the very beginning, 
impressive from his discernment and truthfulness, 
and attractive from the simplicity of his style, the 
poetic beauty of his illustrations, alid the unaffected 
earnestness with which he persuaded many. 

In the summer of 1835 he came to Boston with his 
wife and child, and was to have delivered the poem 
at the annual celebration of the Phi Beta Kappa So- 
ciety at Cambridge. But his severe labors had worn 
so much upon him, that, a few days previous to the 
festivity, he was suddenly attacked with bleeding 
from the lungs ; and of course all speaking in public 
was at once to be given up, and nothing was to be 
done but to pay the strictest attention to the care of 
his precarious health. Dr. Putnam, his most intimate 
friend, delivered the poem which he had prepared 
for the highest literary occasion of our College ; but 
all the charm of his verse only served to make his 
friends feel more painfully the danger which threat- 
ened him. 

During this visit to New England, he was called 
to undergo, in his weakness of body, an afflic- 
tion than which few can be more difficult to bear, 
even with all the strength which can be acquired 
from religious principle and vigor of mind. His 
first-born child, a son, was removed from the care 
of its earthly parents ; and thus bereavement and 
sickness were combined to distress a spirit of un- 
common strength and elasticity. He recovered suffi- 
ciently to return to Cincinnati before winter, but 
could not, in his sorrow and weakness, continue 
the life of hard labor to which he had devoted him- 



MEMOIR. 



XVll 



self before. He went during the winter of 1835 to 
New Orleans, and thence to Mobile. There, too, the 
charm of his life and character was speedily felt and 
appreciated, and at a subsequent visit he was urged, 
with no little earnestness, to establish himself in that 
delightful and safe climate. But the attractions 
of home could not be balanced in his mind by 
the external advantages of another situation. He 
returned to Cincinnati in the summer of 1836, and 
passed the season partly in Dayton, with the hope 
of regaining the strength he had lost. The ex- 
perience of the year, however, convinced him of the 
necessity of going again to the South, and resign- 
ing his situation at Cincinnati, which he accordingly 
did ; and after passing a second winter at the South, 
he came to Boston in the summer of 1837. Here 
he was engaged for a time in preaching at the Fed- 
eral Street Church, in conjunction with Dr. Chan- 
ning, during Dr. Gannett's absence in Europe. A 
more permanent situation was offered to him at New 
Bedford; and the active exertions of some of the 
prominent members of the Unitarian church in that 
town secured a peculiar, but remarkably successful, 
arrangement. Two clergymen, Mr. Peabody and 
Mr. Mori^on, were induced to take joint charge of 
the parish ; and they were to divide the labors in 
such a way as might be found at once agreeable to 
them and satisfactory to their people. 

An arrangement like this could not have been 
made between men of ordinary qualities, and still 
less could it have been carried out faithfully and 
kindly for several years, without understanding each 
6* 



XV111 



MEMOIR, 



other's gifts, or without a disposition, on each side, 
"in honor to prefer one another," — to be " not sloth- 
ful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." 

His residence at New Bedford was marked by af- 
flictions of no ordinary kind, in the loss of two chil- 
dren ; a discipline of which, if human faculties cannot 
discern the necessity, they may at least perceive the 
effects on the heart and the improvement of the char- 
acter. His mode of life there, as at every other place 
where he had resided, endeared him to his people 
with a strength of affection which is rare, even in 
the relation of congregation and minister, and even 
in the country where that relation is of more impor- 
tance than anywhere else on the globe. The uni- 
versality with which he excited, in minds of the 
most differing, almost opposite structure, the com- 
mon feeling of respectful affection, is a phenomenon 
which can be accounted for only by his quick and 
clear perception of character, mingled with a just 
appreciation of the excellences of others, and a ready 
sympathy with their feelings. It is often thought, 
and often said, that this sympathy is a proof of 
goodness, though not of mind, — of kindness, but 
not of sagacity. On the contrary, there is hardly 
an evidence which can be given of greater* power of 
judgment, than to discover, promptly, not merely 
what is a stranger's habitual or occasional feeling, 
but also to what extent it may be justified, or so far 
approved, that one may properly allow a similar feel- 
ing in his own breast, — and when it must be con- 
demned and avoided. Much that seems selfish cold- 
ness, in this world, is merely obtuseness in under- 



MEMOIR. 



xix 



standing the feelings of others,, and is therefore 
rather a fault or defect of the understanding than 
of the heart. But however that may be, the sym- 
pathy which Mr. Peabody felt and expressed for a 
vast variety of character, arose from the readiness 
with which he understood their position, and wa* 
able to explain to himself the origin and probable 
cause of the sentiments they expressed. This fac- 
ulty is one of those acknowledged and unenvied 
powers which give wide influence and unsuspected 
effect to all the other faculties a man may possess. 
It is a power which is not liable to envy, for it can 
hardly be known till time has proved its existence ; 
and then its influence and charm are felt, and all 
unite in loving him who appreciates all, and sympa- 
thizes with all. 

Thus it was that he acquired and preserved the 
affection of his people at New Bedford, as he had 
done at Cincinnati. They respected his wisdom, 
they admired his sagacity, they loved his gentleness, 
they delighted in his genial humor, his constant 
cheerfulness and kindness. In the many difficulties 
which had surrounded his life, it could not have 
been easy to preserve the possession of these quali- 
ties. In many, perhaps in most men, they would 
have been crushed out by poverty, sickness, and do- 
mestic losses. His first-born child had died in its 
infancy ; he had himself suffered from a disorder 
frequently fatal ; he had been obliged to quit his 
parish, and parish duties and consolations, and to 
give up his visible means of support. In fact, he 
had parted with his very books, and his wife's wed- 



XX 



MEMOIR. 



ding presents, to procure the necessaries of life. 
Thus, when he began his New Bedford ministry, he 
had no books to refer to ; he had a little pine table 
to write on ; and that, with a few chairs, constituted 
the whole furniture of his study. But, on the other 
hand, he had no debts, and he had no wants beyond 
his means of supply ; and he was therefore as inde- 
pendent, as fully in the possession, and in the habit 
of exercise, of the faculties which were wealth to 
him, as he could have been under any circum- 
stances. With what success he used his powers, 
and improved his opportunities, is told emphatically 
by the affection and respect in which he was held in 
New Bedford, and with which his memory will be 
regarded as long as any who listened to him shall 
survive. 

His life in that beautiful city was uneventful, but 
progressive. He was always diligent in cultivating 
the powers he possessed, and in acquiring the knowl- 
edge, in every department of mind, which could not 
fail to be useful to himself and others. Every ora- 
tion, or lecture, which he was called on to deliver, 
and they were not few, gave him a new topic and a 
new stimulus for attaining the appropriate informa- 
tion ; and his mind was thus incidentally enriched 
upon a vast variety of subjects, which it is rarely 
the privilege of one man to master. Thus he was 
perpetually educating himself, and was educated by 
circumstances, of which he perseveringly availed 
himself to increase his stores of knowledge. He 
was at that time in the full maturity of life. He 
had gone through a long and varied course of edu- 



MEMOIR. 



xxi 



cation, of preparation of mind and character, valua- 
ble alike for the life that now is, and for that which 
is to come. 

Various incidents combined to make another 
change of situation probable and advisable. Two 
parishes in Boston were vacant, both of which de- 
sired to secure him as their pastor, and showed by 
their competition the reputation he had acquired as 
an able and faithful minister. Of course it would 
be presumptuous to say, that, if his decision between 
the two churches had been different from what it 
eventually was, the result would not have been 
equally fortunate for him ; but it may be said with 
truth that the parish of King's Chapel were not 
merely attracted to him at first by the merit of his 
preaching, the unpretending modesty of his de- 
meanor, the cheerful seriousness of his manners, the 
strength of his character, and the beauty of his life, 
but that their feeling towards him, and opinion of 
him, grew stVonger and higher every day of the 
eleven years that he was permitted to remain in 
connection with them. No complaint was heard of 
his neglecting this or that duty, this or the other 
person. He neglected nothing proper for him to do ; 
he neglected no one to whom he should have at- 
tended. This may seem an extravagant assertion 
at first ; but the more it is considered, the less ex- 
travagant will it appear, and the more firm will be 
the conviction of its truth, and the higher the esti- 
mation of him of whom it can be said. 

He came to Boston with no exaggerated reputa- 
tion as an eloquent preacher, or a brilliant writer or 



xxii 



MEMOIR. 



speaker. Indeed, his audience soon learned that he 
merited more commendation than he had received, 
in these respects ; and it is not difficult to explain 
this fact, if it need any explanation. His mind had 
been growing by cultivation, and by its own inhe- 
rent vigor, from his youth until now ; and when it 
had reached its greatest development, from experi- 
ence and maturity, he was placed in just the situa- 
tion to stimulate him to the best exertions he could 
make, without anything forced or unnatural in the 
process. To a careful observer he showed, not by 
spasmodic effort, but by faithful and calm endeavor, 
the richness of his accumulated thoughts and stud- 
ies, his experience of the influence of events upon the 
character, and of emotion on the heart. He knew, 
not merely the effect which passing circumstances, 
whether of joy or sorrow, would produce upon indi- 
viduals, but what would be the effect of the joy or 
the sorrow itself, in its subsequent working on the 
character ; and his intuitive quickness of judgment 
was aided by the accuracy of his discernment.* 
Preaching has become a very different thing from 

* The following remarks are made by a friend, who had unusual 
opportunities for observation, as well as rare power of discernment of 
the peculiarities of Mr. Peabody's character. "In one respect," says 
Mr. Chandler in a note to the writer, " he was the most remarkable 
man it has been my fortune to meet ; and that was in the union of a 
childlike simplicity with a singular knowledge of men. His judg- 
ments on the characters of those with whom he came in contact, were 
really wonderful. All shams, all pretence, all mere outside coverings, 
seemed to fall at once before his mild eye ; and although his opinions 
were invariably announced with great caution, and he always took 
the most lenient view possible, yet it was clear he understood per- 
fectly well the real character of those whom he knew." 



MEMOIR. 



XX111 



what it once was. In this our day, no easy gener- 
alities or worn-out commonplaces will do anything 
more than put people to sleep, That which is 
meant for all alike must necessarily be a very loose 
garment, while the coat which an individual will 
wear must, of course, be adapted to his figure. At 
the same time, the greatest adroitness is requisite, to 
draw an outline with just so much of distinctness as 
shall suffice to make one see himself, without point- 
ing him out to the observation of others. When 
this is done, the hearer preaches to himself ; at least, 
if he does not, it is in vain for the speaker to hold 
forth with the fervent exhortation, or the sharp re- 
buke. However keen the weapon, and well aimed 
the blow, its force is turned aside, and its edge 
blunted, by the defensive armor of practised insensi- 
bility. When a man has observed himself, he knows 
if others have observed him or not. Who that has 
listened to Mr. Peabody cannot bear witness to his 
having been touched, sometimes to the quick, by 
observations which the hearer only could properly 
apply, — which were general, perhaps, in their form, 
but very particular in their relation to the individual 
whose consciousness and whose conscience they 
reached. Of course, this cannot happen on every 
occasion, nor can every sermon apply with this par- 
ticularity to the character of each listener ; a fact 
which tends greatly to account for the different judg- 
ments we hear about the same discourse. He who 
has perceived that his own secret fault has been 
drawn, as if it were known to the preacher, feels 
the power that has penetrated beneath the surface, 



XXIV 



MEMOIR. 



while others have been unmoved in their calm satis- 
faction ; and it is not till the whole ground of hu- 
man nature has been gone over, that all hearers can 
unite in testimony to the speaker's power. 

The wide range of subjects allowed, and not only 
allowed, but required, of the pulpit in this age, and 
particularly in this city, gives an opportunity for a 
great variety of subjects, and of manner of treat- 
ment of them, without stepping aside from the more 
important and appropriate purposes of pulpit dis- 
courses to treat of the temporary public interests of 
the day. A mind like Mr. Peabody's, endowed with 
delicate original perceptions, carefully cultivated, 
and furnished with a remarkably varied experience, 
was uncommonly well prepared to meet the differ- 
ent calls for sympathy and instruction by the very 
different minds and circumstances of individuals in 
the parish. He did this, not merely by his preach- 
ing, but by cultivating a personal knowledge of the 
particular character of each member of the congre- 
gation ; and the natural consequence of this free and 
constant intercourse was at once a better and more 
intimate mutual acquaintance, and a growing at- 
tachment to him on the part of those to whom he 
so faithfully attended, which never ceased to in- 
crease. The excellent judgment which guided him, 
and the kind feeling which impelled him, were seen 
and acknowledged by all ; and it is safe to say, that 
the affection thus awakened in his people cannot be 
surpassed ; and happy is it for any parish and any 
minister that exhibit an equally ' well-founded, cor- 
dial, and unwavering reciprocal attachment. 



MEMOIR. XXV 

All his powers and sympathies, however, were 
not expended upon his parish alone. He felt that 
he could do something more, without danger of 
neglecting what must be considered as the first duty 
of a settled minister ; and he was encouraged to 
undertake an enterprise in which he could count 
upon the sympathy and co-operation of many of his 
church. He established, in conjunction with the late 
Rev. F. T. Gray, a school for adults whose educa- 
tion had been neglected, and obtained the active 
services of individuals of his parish, especially of 
ladies, for the elementary instruction of the female 
portion of the foreign and poorer population particu- 
larly, though it was not confined to them in prac- 
tice. Those who needed further education than 
they had been able to procure, from the public means 
at their command, were invited, and he speedily col- 
lected a numerous school of children and adults, 
who were eager for the advantages afforded to 
them, and who repaid unexpected kindness by un- 
claimed gratitude. The school remains to this 
day, conducted by others, but on the plan which he 
devised, and doing the good he contemplated. 

In another department his efforts were eminently 
wise and successful. He observed the great abuses 
to which the charitable impulses of this communi- 
ty"' are exposed ; and the singular interference, or 
rather overlapping, of different institutions for be- 
nevolent purposes ; and the danger there is that 
the spirit of sectarianism should mix itself up with 
the spirit of benevolence, and thus, instead of en- 
larging the heart and the understanding, should con- 
c 



xx vi 



MEMOIR. 



tract them within narrower limits than even a sharp- 
sighted selfishness might do. He saw that the 
means of the city, in its corporate capacity, and of 
the numerous associations who profess to care for 
this or that class of destitute persons, were very 
large, and nearly sufficient, probably, if properly dis- 
tributed, to meet all just claims for relief; but that 
they were scattered, or piled upon one another in 
aid of the same persons, without the knowledge of 
each other's action, and without that co-operation 
which would have made the labors of all more ef- 
fective and judicious. Vast numbers of the poor, 
strangers and foreigners, were not included among 
the beneficiaries of any of the societies, and were in 
the habit of perambulating the streets, and visiting 
the houses in certain parts of the city, quite sure of 
making a good day's work of it, with the aid of a 
piteous story and a plausible air. Thus mischief of 
various sorts was done. The one party acquired a 
facility of telling pity-moving tales, which easily be- 
came adroit falsehoods, and the other was wearied, 
and in danger of becoming hard-hearted, from the 
frequent discovery of attempted imposition, and the 
impossibility of answering all the calls of even the 
deserving poor. Mr. Peabody took judicious and 
unwearied pains to introduce into this city a plan, 
which had already been adopted in New York with 
good success, of dividing the entire city into small 
districts, the supervision of each one of which was 
intrusted to an individual, who should personally 
examine, in that limited district, into every case to 
which he was requested to attend by any contrib- 



MEMOIR. 



XXV11 



utor. The scheme was simple and effective. It 
grows in the favor of the public as it continues its 
useful operations, and whether with or without the 
co-operation of more limited associations, it neces- 
sarily acts as a sort of balance-wheel upon the 
whole ; and, without increasing the actual expendi- 
ture of the more favored classes, distributes their 
contributions far more judiciously than they could 
be disposed of on any other plan. Those among 
the idle and the poor whose resources of beggary 
were at once curtailed, were loud in their complaints 
of the operations of this association ; but these com- 
plaints, if examined, will prove the best eulogy of 
the institution. 

Mr. Peabody's residence in Boston was not, how- 
ever, a mere addition to the labors of his life. He 
had enjoyments and relaxations which were particu- 
larly well suited to his temperament. The society 
of his friends, both in and out of his parish, was of 
a kind well adapted to a delicate and discerning 
mind ; and he enjoyed it with the full consciousness 
that there was sympathy of feeling and coincidence 
of judgment with him, in the hearts and understand- 
ings of those about him. Not that these were ever 
wanting to him before ; but of course they more 
abounded in the larger society he could find here. 
In whatever circles he moved, he was sure to gain the 
respect and the affection of all whose esteem was 
most desirable ; and if any were indifferent to him, 
no man ever exhibited hostility. After he had been 
in Boston about three years, he had an opportunity 
to visit his old friends in Cincinnati ; and while it 



xxviii 



MEMOIR. 



was pleasant to see the good effect of travelling 
upon his health and spirits, it was most interesting 
to observe the cordiality with which he was greeted 
in the place of his early responsible labors, how 
truly he was appreciated, and with how much care 
his welfare was sought. Nothing could have been 
more appropriate, or more kind, than his reception 
in the scene of his youthful and unassisted efforts. 
It was a welcome such as no man receives who has 
not earned it, — a spontaneous outpouring of respect 
and affection, than which there is nothing in this life 
more delightful to give or to receive. 

Three or four years after this, he made another 
tour, of more extended character, — one by which 
he was likely to be benefited, both physically and 
intellectually, as much as any-one who ever made 
the voyage of Europe. He passed six months of 
the year 1853 in travelling over as much of the 
Continent as he could profitably do in that space of 
time, and returned with a clear perception of the 
diversities of modes of life, manners, cultivation, 
and, to include the whole in one word, of civiliza- 
tion, in which we Americans have much to learn, 
as well as those in which we may have something 
to teach, in the great school of mutual instruction. 
It was in the maturity of his powers that he made 
this tour, when he was capable of deriving all the 
benefit from it which its nature could give ; and un- 
questionably his views were enlarged and corrected 
upon a variety of subjects, — as well upon what is 
deficient there as upon what is wanting here, upon 
what abounds on the one side and is defective on 



MEM OIK. 



xxix 



the other. He went with all the impressible vivacity 
of a boy, and with all the maturity of what he was, 
a highly cultivated man ; and while he discriminated 
in the latter capacity, he enjoyed with all the free- 
dom and hilarity of the former. Can any higher 
proof be given of the improvement of character 
which results from constant self-discipline, than the 
retaining of ardor, and the disposition to be pleased, 
with increasing knowledge and experience ? To the 
really wise man the enjoyments of life are not mere 
vanity and vexation of spirit; and to the pure in 
heart there is much to reward the labor which is 
itself a pleasure. Mr. Peabody found enough in the 
novelty, the arts, and the natural beauties of Europe, 
greatly to interest him ; and in the relaxation from 
wear and tear of the heart and the intellect, there 
was not only present health, but, he hoped, future 
strength. His tour through Italy, especially, gave 
him a rich enjoyment at the time, and a fund of 
recollections, which were perpetually abounding, af- 
terwards, with a pleasure hardly eclipsed by even 
the present reality* 

* Mr. Chandler accompanied Mr. Peabody through a great part of 
this tour, and the following passage describes in a few words the ef- 
fect which travelling with hirn produced upon a sympathizing mind. 

" To visit these scenes with him, to listen to his criticisms, to be 
guided by his excellent taste, to be enlightened by his extensive 
knowledge, but, more than all, to be affected by nearness to a charac- 
ter so refined, so simple, and so true, I regard as among the most 
fortunate events of my life. He never talked for effect. He never 
dealt in epigrammatic sayings. Everything that he said was so sim- 
ple, and natural, and almost always suggested by surrounding circum- 
stances, that it cannot be repeated without the accompanying inci- 
dents." 

C* 



XXX 



MEMOIR. 



He was accustomed to spend a portion of every 
summer, for several years, with Mr. Swain, at the 
pleasant island, Naushon, where he and his family 
had all the enjoyments of cultivated and cheerful 
minds, which can arise from the contemplation of 
the beauty and sublimity of ocean and land, in the 
society of sympathizing friends. This must have 
been, indeed it obviously was, a gratification sin- 
gularly well adapted to his peculiar capacities of 
mind and heart, to his delicate imagination and 
his quick sympathies. It was here almost exclu- 
sively, of late years, that he felt at liberty to in- 
dulge in those poetical expressions of feeling, which 
he had compelled himself, and which the more se- 
rious business of his life had compelled him, in great 
measure, to forego, since his establishment in Bos- 
ton ; and he poured forth, from season to season, 
the frolicsome humor, the refined sentiment, and the 
elevated impulses which adorned and completed his 
character. In 1852, he delivered a Commencement 
poem at Brunswick College, which was received 
with great applause, and even enthusiasm, by an 
audience favorably disposed, of course, but well able 
to judge of the merit of a performance charmingly 
adapted to the occasion. 

During his whole professional career, however, he 
gave his time and thoughts gradually less and less 
to the imagination, and more to the realities of life 
and duty. With his growing experience, and his 
care to learn every lesson it could teach, his weekly 
discourses improved in a manner so marked as to be 
obvious to habitual hearers. Of course, some of his 



MEMOIR. 



xxxi 



sermons were more highly thought of than others, 
for it is impossible either that any man should write 
equally well on every occasion, in all conditions of 
body and mind, or that all hearers should be equally 
affected by the same discourse. In order to judge 
fairly, therefore, of the powers of a minister, it is 
necessary to form, so far as is possible, an average 
opinion ; and if decided in this way, there can be but 
few — very few — preachers who would be deemed 
more able or more successful than Mr. Peabody. 
Certain it is, that, though he never gave his sermons 
the advantage of a skilful rhetorical delivery, — an 
accomplishment the want of which arose, in part, 
from a deficiency of flexibility of voice, and in 
part from the delightful grace of modest distrust 
of his own powers, — few men have been more 
impressive, either in thought or in the appropriate 
expression of it, and no one has been, for many 
years, a more general favorite in this city and vicin- 
ity. He had that within him which gives a man 
the ability to speak as well as write with effect, 
— the quick perception of the feelings of others, 
which, if not genius, produces some of the best re- 
sults of genius, and, at the same time that it com- 
mands respect, attracts also that love which nothing 
but tenderness for others' infirmities can inspire. It 
was this feeling, made up of delicacy and strength, 
which was apparent in all his intercourse with those 
around him, from the loved members of his own 
household to the acquaintance only occasionally 
seen; and every one whom he knew at all was 
sure of being justly appreciated, and of receiving 



XXX11 



MEMOIR. 



from him more respect and kindness than he was 
conscious of deserving. No wonder that such a man 
was loved and respected. The most unobserving 
and careless could not fail to see his disinterested- 
ness, his universal, because conscientious, kindness ; 
while the keenest observer of human faults and 
weakness perceived that he understood all that too, 
and was still kindly, and sympathizing, and gen- 
erous. His life was his best preaching. His ser- 
mons were but the explanation and enforcing to 
others of the rules exemplified in his daily inter- 
course with those around him. It was plain he 
thought that a sermon should not be merely a dis- 
sertation to instruct, nor an oration to surprise and 
excite, but an earnest, thoughtful, and moving ex- 
hortation, addressed to those who, by self-examina- 
tion, as well as by observation of others, were capa- 
ble of being stimulated to improvement. If the place 
of minister to an intelligent parish is one of respon- 
sibility, and even anxiety, so too is that of a parish 
to an able and conscientious minister. They are 
called to exhibit, in their lives and conversation, the 
effect of his constant labors ; and if, in the ten years 
of Mr. Peabody's ministry, any member of his con- 
gregation cannot perceive in himself some tendency 
to improvement from his labors and example, there 
is reason to straggle for it with new, and greater, 
and more anxious effort. 

Whatever might be the subject of his discourse, 
there was always a practical lesson to be learned 
from it. His theology was not contented with pro- 
ducing a conviction, nor even a habit of mind, with- 



MEMOIR. 



xxxiii 



out a corresponding habit of action ; and as the 
latter is the more difficult part of a virtuous life, 
it was upon this he most urged and stimulated 
his hearers. The discourses in this volume are a 
fair specimen of his habitual style of writing, and 
bear witness to the strength of his intellect, the fer- 
vency of his love of all that was good, and the ear- 
nestness of his desire to produce in his hearers the 
habit of devotion to the right, which they could not 
but see characterized every tendency of his own 
mind. There is no exaggeration, and no deficiency 
of warmth ; but a careful statement of truths and 
facts which is confirmed by the experience of every, 
thoughtful person. It would scarcely be wise to 
overstate their claims to attention, and it is certainly 
better to leave every reader to form his opinion of 
their merits, unbiassed by any preliminary criticism. 

An object in which he was almost as much inter- 
ested as in preaching was the Sunday school. He 
was zealous in procuring the attendance of teachers 
for the children, and of children for the teachers, and 
superintended the whole, while he was able to do so, 
with an interest which never failed in himself, and 
which he endeavored to inspire in the instructors. 
He formed, also, in the earlier part of his ministry in 
Boston, a class of older pupils, to be instructed by 
himself, in a course of lectures delivered in his own 
house, on interesting questions of morals, theology, 
sacred history, and kindred subjects. For these he 
prepared himself with great care ; and they were in- 
teresting and useful to those who could attend. 
They were continued for about four years ; as long, 



xxxiv 



MEMOIR. 



indeed, as there were young persons in the parish 
who needed precisely that sort of aid. 

Nothing is more impressive than the remarkable 
industry by which he was enabled, from the begin- 
ning of life to its close, to accomplish labors of a 
great variety of intellectual character. To many 
men, the necessary preparation for the Sabbath would 
be enough of effort of this kind ; but to this Mr. 
Peabody added lectures, for which he always pre- 
pared himself with great care ; numerous reviews 
and literary articles of various descriptions for peri- 
odicals ; poetry of many very different kinds ; and 
occasional discourses, on such occurrences as ordina- 
tions, and centennial or other celebrations. He never 
declined any labor of this sort, merely because it 
was labor, but undertook it with cheerfulness when- 
ever he could see that it was possible for him to ac- 
complish it without interference with the imperative 
calls of duty. At Cincinnati he edited a magazine ; 
in Boston he was joint editor, with Dr. A. P. Pea- 
body and Mr. Morison, of the Christian Kegister, for 
two years ; and his lighter and more labored articles 
were numerous, to a very extraordinary amount. 

The last year of Mr. Peabody's life was one of a 
totally different character from any of a previous 
period. Instead of ministering to others, he was to 
be ministered unto himself; and if any lesson be 
hard to learn, it is for the active man to be reduced to 
inactivity, and for the diligent and generous man to 
make himself the principal object of his own care 
and labor. In the summer of 1855 he was exposed 
to anxiety and loss of rest, especially upon the nights 



MEMOIR, 



XXXV 



preceding and following the Fourth of July ; and al- 
most as early as that date there were symptoms 
of incipient cough. There was no sufficient cause 
for anxiety, however, till after a somewhat sudden 
change of weather, which took place one Sunday 
when he was preaching at Nahant. He was stay- 
ing with friends and parishioners, who devoted them- 
selves to him with all the assiduity that affectionate 
kindness only can inspire. After preaching at the 
little chapel, he was seized with a violent chill and 
cough. From the former he soon recovered ; from 
the latter never. The irritation in the throat which 
produced it could not be soothed ; and it soon be- 
came manifest to his friends, that the question of his 
life or death was not long to remain doubtful. He 
was compelled to give up preaching, and never spoke 
in public after the interesting tribute he paid to the 
memory of one who, in a different sphere, might be 
compared with himself, for the Christian graces and 
virtues of gentleness, firmness, and rectitude. His 
sermon on the death and character of Judge Jackson 
was his last public discourse. It was preached on 
the last Sunday of the year, and was remarkable for 
the applicability of many of the observations, not 
merely to the subject of it, but unconsciously to him- 
self. It was a farewell discourse in more than one 
sense.* 

Late in the winter of 1855 - 6 he went South, 
with Mrs. Peabody, to avoid our chilling spring cli- 
mate ; but wherever he went, his cough went with him, 



* It is the sermon numbered XXII. in this volume. 



XXXVI 



MEMOIR. 



and he returned to his home and his children, in the 
summer, weaker, and with less prospect of relief, than 
when he went away. He passed the warm season 
with his family, at a delightful residence in Milton, 
which was leased to him for the summer ; and there 
he had every advantage of care, both of friends and 
physicians, of as much intercourse with them as his 
condition would permit, of the kindest assiduities, 
and the sympathy which, at all times desirable, is a 
cordial which the generous most require in the dis- 
appointments and trials of failing health. Gradu- 
ally growing weaker, from the unchecked progress of 
his disease, he returned to his home in October, un- 
dergoing the process of incurable decay of the body, 
but with a mind and heart capable of all the ener- 
getic activity of which they ever had the power, 
and developing from day to day, and from hour to 
hour, the mature judgment, the delicate sensibil- 
ity, the pure taste, and the noble forgetfulness of 
self, which constituted his character, and made it 
such an attractive example of faithfulness and con- 
stancy. 

The gradual and regular progress of his disease 
was visible to every eye accustomed to observe 
such cases ; but it is probable he continued to hope 
for amendment till about the period of his return to 
the city. From that time he began to make the 
final arrangements he thought necessary for his de- 
parture. It is a severe test of character to see the 
slow approach of death, to perceive that it moves 
quicker as it draws nearer, and consciously to give 
the last look on all that is dear upon earth. This 



memoir. xxxvii 

trial was his, and from the first moment he became 
aware that his life was soon to draw to a close, he 
advanced along the dark valley with an unfaltering 
step and a steady eye. He ceased to suffer on the 
28th day of November, 1856, at the age of forty-nine; 
and there remains to us the memory of his delight- 
ful qualities, his cultivated powers, his universal, 
genial kindness. Can such an example as his ever 
cease to be attractive and powerful ? We may 
safely say, that, so long as the memory of him is re- 
tained, it will be for the good of him who remembers 
so rare a combination of virtues and talents. These 
few pages have not answered their purpose, if they 
have not delineated one who was given us for an 
example of the effect that can be produced, by well 
directed and constant effort, in the formation and im- 
provement of character. He came from the hands 
of his Maker with high capacities, and he seems to 
have pursued life with the resolve to improve every 
talent, and of his five to gain other five. The pro- 
cess by which he did this, and in which he was 
trained by the providence of God, guiding his course 
through successive trials, as he was successively pre- 
pared for them by outward events and by inward 
reflection, seems very striking to one who looks at 
his life with that idea. His progress from Cam- 
bridge to Meadville, Cincinnati, Mobile, New Bed- 
ford, and Boston, was adjusted to the degree of de- 
velopment of his powers, in proportion to the field 
on which they were to be exercised ; while the rare 
and endearing qualities of his heart elicited a sym- 
pathetic affection in very widely different spheres of 
cl 



xxxviii 



MEMOIR. 



life. His example of diligence, energy, tenderness, 
fidelity to the truth, and indeed of all the virtues and 
qualities adapted to make human nature attractive, 
was singularly complete. What has been said of 
him may appear, to those who did not know him, 
exaggerated ; but the appeal may be made with con- 
fidence to every one who was familiar with him, if 
there has been anything said in these pages beyond 
what the very law of truth requires. Certainly the 
conviction of its justice, in the secret consciousness 
of every one who knew him, will serve to raise our 
standard of possible virtue, and stimulate our efforts 
to attain a degree of excellence which we might 
have thought impossible without such an example. 
If it be wrong to present a delineation without an 
important blemish, it would be still more so to sug- 
gest a fault for the mere purpose of avoiding a cavil; 
and whatever be the suspicion of blindness or fa- 
voritism, the truth, and the truth only, must be re- 
corded. 

In the desk his manner was of that serious and 
earnest character which left nothing to be added 
without danger of compromising the gentleness and 
directness which gave a charm to every sentiment 
and every warning he uttered. He was not impas- 
sioned ; he did not excite the indifferent, or stimu- 
late the lukewarm, by strength of language, or 
vehemence of manner. His object was to persuade 
and convince, and to treat of those trials of virtue 
and principle which are met with every day, and 
which are to be resisted with that calm preparation 
which alone can enable a man to withstand evil vie- 



MEMO IE. 



xxxix 



toriously. He knew that the great battle was not 
fought and won in a brief conflict ; that it is the em- 
ployment of life, — the whole of it ; and that, if we 
are to come off conquerors, it must be by means of 
constant, earnest, unrelaxing effort. The topics of 
his discourses were various enough to excite a con- 
stant interest in his hearers, without going into those 
subjects of temporary excitement, politics, or con- 
troversy of any sort, which did not seem to him prof- 
itable or suitable to the time and place. In this 
practice he had the entire sympathy and support of 
his parish. In the house of mourning, or the house 
of joy, no man had a happier manner of instilling 
the appropriate lesson of the hour, to calm the over- 
whelming grief, or moderate the engrossing happi- 
ness, by a kindly sympathy, an appropriate demean- 
or, and the gentle suggestion of duty. His fervent 
prayers on such occasions must have often availed 
much to soothe and to calm hearts agitated by the 
strongest emotions of grief, or the high excitements 
of happy emotion. 

In private life he had that quiet way of showing 
interest in what was passing, and in the individual 
with whom he was associating, which is always at- 
tractive, and which, combined with the slight air of 
embarrassment that disappeared almost immediately, 
gave a wonderful charm to the conversation, to which 
he always contributed a liberal share of thought and 
of sympathy. The extent to which he put himself 
mentally in the place of others, and thought then- 
thoughts, and felt their feelings, can be appreciated 
only by those who have enjoyed the satisfaction of 



xl 



MEMOIR. 



familiar intercourse with him ; while the delicate 
humor and vivacity, approaching to wit, which 
abounded in his temperament, showed itself to 
those who would appreciate it at its true value, 
with a geniality that was "irresistibly winning. So 
marked, and so attractive, were the distinguishing 
features of his face and of his character, that they 
impressed themselves on the memory with a power 
and a charm that cannot be forgotten ; and the rec- 
ollection of him will be, as his presence was, a 
cheering stimulus, a frequent protection, a perpetual 
blessing through all the future. If our life be as 
" a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then 
vanisheth away," his course resembled, in its mild 
beauty, the sunset cloud he so early loved, which 
casts no shadow, and adds a charm even to the 
light of heaven. 



SERMONS. 



In the last weeks of his life, and after he had relinquished all 
thought of ever being able to preach again, Mr. Peabody, at the 
suggestion of friends, formed the plan of preparing a volume of 
Sermons to leave behind him. He made some progress in desig- 
nating the discourses that should be printed ; and the greater part 
of those which constitute this volume were selected by himself. 
But his strength failed fast, and he was obliged to leave the work 
of preparation for publication to others. The following letter of 
Dedication and Farewell, which he intended should accompany 
the contemplated volume, was dictated a few days before his 
death, and, excepting one or two brief notes to afflicted friends, 
was his last effort of composition. 



TO 

THE MEMBERS OF 

THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY 
IN CINCINNATI AND IN NEW BEDFORD, 

AND TO THOSE OF 

KING'S CHAPEL, BOSTON. 

With all of you I have been connected as your 
regularly chosen and settled minister. We were 
separated for no reason that I am aware of, except 
that frail health which now separates me from you 
all. The great interests, and no small part of the 
dearest friendships of life, are associated with you. 
I want you to believe that every word I have 
uttered to you, urging on you the importance of 
a religious life, has been spoken with the most 
intense conviction that the only permanent hap- 
piness of this life, the only true hope for the life 
to come, are to be drawn from a religious conse- 
cration of one's self to God, and to the perform- 
ance of the duties which he, in his love, appoints. 



xliv 



DEDICATION. 



I would impress this on you if it were possible 
with my last words. Now that I stand on the 
brink of that river (not always dark), I wish that 
my farewell words may be those that I have ex- 
pressed in preceding years, when that could be no 
more than an object of faith which is now fast 
becoming a reality. 

May God bless, forgive, and help us all, is the 
prayer of one who cannot cease to feel an affec- 
tion for you so long as memory remains and his 
nature is unchanged. 

E. PEABODY. 

November 17, 1856. 



SERMON I. 



CHRIST OUR LIFE. 

CHRIST, WHO IS OUR LIFE. — Col. ill. 4. 

The emphatic manner in which the dependence 
of man on Christ for spiritual life is affirmed, is very 
remarkable. He is the way, the truth, and the life. 
He is the bread of life which cometh down from 
heaven, of which if a man eat, he shall live for ever. 
" As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by 
the Father, so he that eateth me shall live by me." 
The constant teaching of the Gospels is, that Al- 
mighty God sent the Saviour into the world to be the 
centre and source of a higher spiritual life ; and that 
the degree in which any one of us receives this life 
depends very much on the nearness which, through 
faith and reverence and love, we maintain to him. 
This doctrine, on which such stress is laid, 1 fear we 
do not appreciate. We overlook it, or look on it as 
a mystical, unintelligible statement, or more likely 
regard what is said of Christ as meant, in reality 
and only, of his religion, and in so doing separate 
ourselves from a divinely appointed source of life. 
On the contrary, I wish to show its fundamental 



2 



CHRIST OUR LIFE. 



and practical importance, — that it is grounded in 
the laws of human nature, and that it meets the 
actual wants of the soul. 

In doing this, I may ask your attention to a more 
lengthened and abstract discussion than I could wish. 
But if I should be able to lead any one who is sin- 
cerely desirous of improvement in the Christian life 
to a clearer understanding of its dependence on the 
personal relations he sustains to the Saviour, I shall 
think the time not spent in vain. I approach the 
subject with the conviction, that, if we desire to be 
Christians, there is no practical doctrine of the New 
Testament more needful for us to take to our hearts. 

I pause, in the first place, on some general consid- 
erations which bear immediately on the particular 
doctrine. 

The growth of the spiritual life is the result of 
two methods, each essential, one the complement of 
the other, and each requiring the co-operation of the 
other. In part .the spiritual life is self-developed 
from within, through a right exercise of the will, as 
manifested in righteous aims faithfully kept, in re- 
pentance of wrong, in religious self-government ; 
and in part the spiritual life is derived from without, 
through a right exercise of faith and the affections. 

The tendency with us is to place an exaggerated 
and sometimes an exclusive value on the first source. 
We view a right character as if it were the exclusive 
product of the individual will. We scarcely recog- 
nize as virtues those qualities which are not the re- 
sult of struggle and conquest. This way of think- 
ing is fostered by much of our theology and our 



CHRIST OUR LIFE. 



3 



philosophy. It is seen in the theories of individual 
self-dependence. We are Protestants. And Protes- 
tantism tends steadily towards a self-dependent in- 
dividualism, by which is meant, in general, that 
theory of man which supposes him, under God, suf- 
ficient unto himself, which magnifies his self-de- 
pendence and independence, which makes the reason 
the sufficient source of truth, and the will the sole 
source of virtue. Its tendency is to lead men to put 
a lower estimate on all external helps, on all tradi- 
tional revelation, on all outward institutions, on the 
Christian Church, and on the influence of Christ 
himself. 

But certainly this theory infinitely exaggerates 
man's isolated self-dependence. Admit it to the 
fullest extent in which it can be claimed, and still 
no one who looks at facts will deny that the moral 
life of man is derived externally from others, not less 
than from an internal force in himself. The little 
child is as dependent for the development of its 
moral life on the parent, as it is for the support and 
development of its natural life. External moral in- 
fluences enter at once into its moral growth, and 
become a substantive part of its character. Infuse 
into the ascending sap of a tree some coloring fluid, 
and the very leaves are speedily tinged; introduce 
a poisonous fluid, and they are blighted. So with 
the child, the moral influences which it receives 
from parents, associates, playmates, from the gen- 
eral spirit of those around, enter into the circulations 
of its moral nature to become its life or its death. 
If that support of its moral life which is derived from 



4 



CHRIST QUE LIFE. 



others were withdrawn, if from infancy it could be 
shut up in a moral solitude, it would scarcely rise 
above the condition of the animal or the idiot. 

The theory of man's self-dependence is confronted 
by all the facts in human experience. So far from 
its being well founded, the first view of human soci- 
ety presents a fact so universal, undeniable, and fear- 
ful too, that it has often created the sentiment, if 
not the faith, of fatalism, — the fact that man is 
what he is, very much because those around him 
are what they are. Throughout the world, the in- 
dividual is marked all over, like the mystic scroll 
of the Prophet, written within and without by the 
characteristics of the civilization in whose atmos- 
phere he lives. The Tartar child grows up into the 
tastes and passions of his tribe ; and the Hindoo 
bears with him, ineffaceable on the soul as on the 
body, the features of his race. Place the infant 
in an intelligent, affectionate, Christian home, and 
within certain limits it will grow up with the ideas, 
tastes, views of life, predominant beliefs, and convic- 
tions of duty, which prevail in that home. Should 
he be unfaithful in after life, his vices even will bear 
the marks of the civilization to which he belongs. 
The child breathes in the moral elements around it 
by almost the same necessity as he does the natural 
air. For good and wise reasons, it is the way in 
which Providence has appointed that the moral na- 
ture of man shall grow. 

Nay, in this law is found the strongest, the most 
sacred, and also the most fearful bond of human so- 
ciety. By it men are united, not merely in neigh- 



CHRIST OUR LIFE. 



a 



borhoods of convenience and pleasure, but they draw 
from each other their moral life. The bonds which 
unite them are vital. We live as it were in one 
another, — each man's life diffusing itself abroad, 
blending itself with, and becoming a component 
part of, the life of those around him. 

Nor is this influence confined to the living. Could 
we decompose the moral history of any man, how 
wide and various would be his spiritual relations. 
Call to mind those whom you knew in childhood ; 
and how large a part of your tastes, views, and pur- 
poses in life, your very manners and language, are 
derived from them. They are gone, but they live 
still in you, — in the moral tendencies communi- 
cated to you. Nor these alone. Your intellectual 
life has derived nutriment from men who lived 
centuries ago, — from those whose very languages, 
though we term them dead, are still to us the 
sources of mental inspiration. Had they been dif- 
ferent, you would not have been the same. Your 
soul has been quickened by the adoring thoughts of 
David and Isaiah, and by the touching reverence 
and tender humanity of John. Those from whom 
we have most largely derived spiritual life may be 
separated from us by the gulf of ages. And yet in 
another world we may meet them and say, To you 
we owe it that we had devout thoughts of God, or 
humane thoughts towards man. Nor are they dis- 
tant from us now. He who touches my soul is 
nearest to me of all men. Our measures of time 
and space do not here apply. I am most with those 
whose spiritual power I most feel. They may be 



6 



CHRIST OUR LIFE. 



scattered over different lands and ages, but they are 
present to me. Others, though I look on them and 
touch them and traverse the same streets with them, 
are strangers and distant. 

I present these general considerations for the pur- 
pose of illustrating the dependence of the world for 
spiritual life on the Saviour. A common theory is 
that the whole power of Christianity lies in its 
truths, and that, had they come to us stated in 
formal propositions, their source being unknown, 
the power of the religion would have remained ; 
that it matters little what we think of Christ, pro- 
vided we accept the principles of his religion. 

But this is contrary alike to the teachings of the 
New Testament and the facts of history. In the 
Gospels the greatest stress is laid, not on faith in 
Christianity merely, but on faith in Christ himself, 
in the personal Christ. He that believeth on the 
Son hath everlasting life. The personality of Christ 
always stands forward in front as the embodiment 
of his religion. Faith in him is faith in his religion. 
We can separate the truths which Plato taught 
from Plato himself, because the philosopher was 
less than his system. But you cannot separate 
Christ from his religion ; and for the reason that 
the religion was, above all, revealed in his personal 
character. Christ is Christianity. It is a remarka- 
ble fact, that the four accounts of Christianity which 
we have are all of them, not philosophical statements 
of a system, but biographies of Christ. The life 
was more than the words. His teachings are con- 
stantly interpreted by what he did. Subtract from 



CHRIST QUE LIFE. 



7 



the Gospels the life of Christ himself, and it would 
take the soul out of the body. The religion would 
dwindle and vanish into a few vague, powerless 
aphorisms. 

This is a point which I apprehend is too much 
overlooked. "We compare Christianity and its Au- 
thor with philosophers and their systems. In this 
material point they are to be, not compared, but con- 
trasted. "When Almighty God saw fit to make a 
revelation to man, he made it chiefly through the 
visible life of his Son. He saw fit that the high- 
est truth, the holiest aim, should be communicated 
through Jesus Christ, the mediator between God 
and man, making him to stand between, the centre 
of spiritual help to man, as the sun is the centre 
from which streams the light that bathes the earth 
on whichr man dwells. 

Viewed historically, the life of Christ gave a new, 
immense, and mysterious impulse to the moral life 
of the world. His life is the great epoch in the 
moral history of man. The human race advances 
morally by elevating the type of virtue, by raising 
the idea of excellence, by the addition of some new 
moral element, and the modification through it of 
preceding ideas of human excellence. Now, what 
strikes one in the history of man before Christ is not 
only the low level of human excellence, but that 
throughout the world the ideas of excellence were 
on much the same level. One state was more pol- 
ished tharf another, and yet between the moral ideas 
of the civilized and barbarian worlds there was less 
difference than one might at first think. But the 



8 



CHRIST OUR LIFE. 



life of Christ presented before the world, not only 
a higher, but an essentially different type of excel- 
lence. Not only this, he added to the elements which 
composed that excellence. It was not a recomposi- 
tion of former ideas, but the addition of new ones. 
For example, in Greece the Christian idea of the 
love of man, as something reaching beyond the 
limits of friendship, or what was but an enlarged 
self, the city, had scarcely an existence. In the list 
of virtues set forth by the wisest of the philosophers, 
the Christian idea of charity, mercy, and their kin- 
dred virtues, will, I think, be found to have no place ; 
or if any, one of entire insignificance. The Greek 
was as polished, as graceful, and as hard as one of 
his own marble statues. He had not added to, but 
only polished and refined, and freed from their gross 
associations, the virtues of the barbarian. Viewed 
historically, the life of Christ presented before the 
world a new, a more enlarged, a higher type of char- 
acter, as the one which God approved and required. 
In him was a divine revelation of perfect humanity. 
And that perfect life thus revealed became hence- 
forth, as he declared it should be, the life of man. 
You cannot trace a river more distinctly from its 
mountain springs, than you can the higher ideas of 
excellence in the world from their manifestation in 
the life of Christ. 

This personal influence of the Saviour appears 
from the beginning. A mysterious expectation at- 
tended his steps. His early followers did not waver 
in their fidelity, though he disappointed all their 
fondest Jewish hopes, and though he promised no 



CHBIST OUR LIFE. 



9 



earthly reward but persecution like that which he 
himself endured. Under his influence, their whole 
moral being underwent a transformation, the greatest 
conceivable. Behold his disciples seated with their 
Master around the table of the Last Supper. A 
few years ago these men all possessed the Jewish 
mind and heart, — were shut up within their Jewish, 
prejudices and passions. Already they are greatly 
changed. New thoughts, new beliefs, new hopes, 
new ideas of duty, of man, and of God, are dawning 
on their minds. In a brief time more, still greater 
changes are seen. The hard, reluctant heart is gone. 
They are dedicated not to the Jewish law, but to 
human good. The Jew's contempt of the Gentile 
gone, they are the first missionaries of truth to the 
heathen world, and give themselves for the salvation 
of those who are ready to persecute and slay them. 
All selfish ends are cast out by an abounding, self- 
sacrificing love ; while faith and trust in God lift 
them above the power of the world and the fear of 
death. These humble fishermen from the Galilean 
lake are filling the great places of history. These 
ignorant men are the teachers of sages. From Gaul* 
to the Euphrates, they are revolutionizing religions. 
They have caught some of the radiance which fell 
from their Master. They are divine men ; and when * 
the reverence of subsequent ages surrounded the 
Saviour's head with a sacred halo, the Apostles' 
heads were fitly encircled with a like, though fee- 
bler glory. 

What has wrought this change ? They them- 
selves explain the problem. The love of Christ 



10 



CHRIST OUR LIFE. 



constrained them. Their faith, love, reverence, made 
them think his thoughts, made them rejoice to carry 
out his purposes, made them judge the world and 
duty and themselves by his judgments. His mem- 
ory was in their hearts, their labors were in his 
cause, and when their brief ministry should be fin- 
ished, they knew they should again be with their 
ascended Lord. Through the assimilating power of 
faith, love, reverence, obedience, they daily grew 
into a likeness of him. And ever since then, wher- 
ever the power of his character has been most felt, it 
has revealed itself in a higher order of virtues, just 
as the hidden stream that flows through the valley 
reveals itself in the richer vegetation along its banks. 

I come now to that point to which the preceding 
remarks tend. We confess that in Christ we have 
disclosed to us a perfect example of that character 
which God most approves and requires. He was 
the well-beloved Son of God, and God would have 
us all to be his children. "We are not called to be 
like him in his miraculous powers, in his supernatu- 
ral attributes, but in that which, after all, is of more 
moment than these, — in that character which is the 
symbol of heaven, and the peace, the order, and the 
blessedness of the heavenly world. In him were 
combined in their perfection those qualities which 
make the perfection of all moral beings ; — the gen- 
tleness that won the heart of the child, a courage 
that was tranquil when confronted by a condemning 
world and by the terrors of a lingering death, a mag- 
nanimity that rose above outrage, a benevolence 
that forgot wrong and thought only of the salvation 



CHRIST OUR LIFE. 



11 



of the wrong-doer, a tenderness that wept at the 
grave of Lazarus and over the foreseen sorrows of 
Jerusalem, and a rectitude by which he was the fit- 
ting judge of the world. 

Now, however we may describe it, that is the 
character around which gather all immortal hopes. 
Compared with the attainment of this in the least 
degree, all other attainments are cheap and poor. 
We wear out life in collecting some handfuls of 
golden dust. And yet one ray of that spiritual 
brightness in our souls is worth more than all 
human treasures. In a few years the gold drops 
from our withered and death-stricken hands, but the 
spiritual excellence is for the eternal world. It is 
mysterious what, one might almost say, is the wil- 
fully opposite estimate placed on the ends of life by 
our indulged desires and by our necessary convic- 
tions. Were we by some horrible judgment on our 
sins sentenced to be successful in all worldly ends, 
— were it said, Thou shalt be rich, loved, powerful, 
famous, but shalt be shut out from gaining justice, 
mercy, piety, the love of right, the love of truth, — we 
should recoil in horror from the doom. It would be 
the realizing of the fable of selling one's soul to the 
Evil One. We should implore God to send on us 
toil, disappointment, sickness, trial, only permit us 
to gain the virtues of a righteous soul. Why shall 
we not have that truthfulness with ourselves which 
shall cause us to see things as they are ? Why not 
have the manliness to say. — I can bear want, mis- 
apprehension, hardship, obscurity, but these virtues, 
the light of earth, the order of heaven, I must have. 



12 



CHRIST OUR LIFE. 



I will not live without them . They may lie at the 
bottom of the sea, but though I seek them through 
storms and billows, these pearls of great price I 
must have. Though I traverse the world with 
bleeding feet and the cross on my heart, I must 
find them. 

Now, to meet this reasonable craving of a reason- ' 
able soul, God has set forth his Son to be the source 
of life to man. It is no arbitrary appointment of 
Providence, but to meet the actual laws of the spir- 
itual beings whom he created. I have before shown 
how spiritual growth is, in part, the product of the 
individual will ; but also how we derive it from 
without through the affections, and how the latter is 
the holiest bond between all spiritual beings, from 
man upward to God. What then is the precise 
law? It is that we become morally like what we 
love. The excellence that we distinctly understand 
and love for its own sake, the heart in some degree 
appropriates to itself. It is the method of spiritual 
appropriation. We cannot escape from this law. 
Debar one from knowing anything of human virtue, 
shut him up as in a dungeon with the hard-hearted, 
the sensual, the depraved, and we know that his 
character will take a coloring from the moral climate 
in which he is imprisoned. 

But behold still further the wisdom and goodness 
of Providence. It is hard to understand and love 
mere abstractions. Therefore God has revealed these 
spiritual excellences, not in abstract phrases, but in 
the visible life of his Son ; in a being whom we can 
approach through sympathy, love, and reverence ; 



CHRIST OUR LIFE. 



13 



and by understanding, loving, revering, obeying him, 
grow in some, however imperfect degree, into his 
likeness. The soul's growth in goodness depends 
mainly on the spiritual sphere in which it dwells. 
And thus, in no words of course or of form, it is the 
highest human privilege to dwell with Christ ; to be 
near him through faith and meditation ; to come 
under the power of his presence ; and so to have 
our poor thoughts lifted up, our unworthy motives 
shamed away, our better dispositions aroused, by the 
inspiring sense of his excellences. It is the divinely 
appointed method by which those who are weak in 
will may become spiritually strong through the af- 
fections ; — by which we who so stumble and fall 
when we attempt to stand in our own strength, by 
surrendering ourselves trustingly to the guidance of 
Christ, by touching the hem of his garment, receive 
something of the strength and life which were in him. 
The Apostles, who may represent the will, fled from 
the judgment-hall ; the women, strong in love, were 
faithful to the cross. 

But, above all, it is to be' remembered that the feel- 
ing awakened in us by the character of Christ de- 
pends on what we do and leave undone, — depends 
on the reverential attention with which we regard it. 
It would be true were he visibly present. If our 
minds were entirely engrossed by other things, and 
heedless of him, it would be with us, as with those 
in Judaea who saw the outward form, but whose 
eyes were not open to recognize the Lord of life. 
He becomes present to us just as far as we under- 
stand him ; as we contemplate his character ; as we 

2 



14 CHRIST OUR LIFE. 



meditate on his excellences ; as we try ourselves by 
his words ; as we seek to approach him in our obe- 
dience. Let this be done, and the open eye can no 
more fail to receive the light, than the open heart to 
receive influences from him. It is the recognition of 
this truth which has caused the wisest men, when 
seriously intent on gaining the Christian spirit, to 
cherish all mental habits and to use all outward 
forms suited to keep his divine presence before the 
mind. They have set the cross up in their cham- 
bers ; they have given to themselves seasons of re- 
tired meditation ; they have daily consecrated some 
moments to the reading of the words of Christ ; they 
have set the highest value on Christian institutions ; 
and all, that the character of the Saviour might be- 
come more and more the object of a believing love 
and reverence. How much the importance of this 
is felt is seen in the fact that the book which, except 
the Bible, has passed through more editions than 
any other in the world, is that entitled, " The Imita- 
tion of Christ." And this in spite of its ascetic and 
fragmentary views, because the reading of it has re- 
ally brought men into the presence of the Saviour. 

I present this subject not on any mystical, inex- 
plicable, arbitrary grounds, but for the purpose of 
urging on your attention, and my own, one of the 
chief methods of Christian growth. "We shall not 
become Christians and remain thoughtless of Christ. 
It is God who has appointed that he shall hold this 
peculiar relation to our minds. He approaches us. 
" Behold, I stand at the door and knock.*' And the 
promise is, " If any man hear my voice and open 



CHRIST OUR LIFE. 



15 



the door, I will come in unto him and abide with 
him." Open your hearts to the entrance of this ce- 
lestial guest. What other presence and what other 
society shall be like his, who is the soul's guide to 
the immortal life ? 

This day, while we commemorate him, it shall not 
be a formal service, beginning and ending in the 
form. In our spiritual need we would humbly draw 
near to him whom God has appointed to be for us 
a perennial source of life. "We would gaze on his 
divine character with reverential eyes, would study 
its divine lineaments, endeavor to comprehend its 
harmonious beauty, and would devoutly hope to 
feel something of its attraction. Our senses and 
the cares of life draw us to the earth. May our 
thoughts here come under that celestial influence 
which raises them heavenward. We will hope that 
we are not quite incapable of loving him who was 
love itself. And if our hearts are callous, and if in 
our darkness we fail to see, like the blind man who 
followed him, we will cry, Son of David, have mercy 
on us! Blessed above all other hours shall that hour 
be whose contemplations give us a clearer view, and 
awaken in us a more profound sense, of the divine 
life that was in Jesus Christ. When all earthly sup- 
ports fail, and the light fades out of the eye in death, 
and the ear hears no more the praise or blame of 
human voices, may that divine voice assign to us a 
place, however humble, among those who, having 
followed him in life, are permitted to follow him in 
the resurrection. 



SERMON II. 



WORLDLINESS. 

SET TOUR AFFECTIONS ON" THINGS ABOVE, NOT ON THINGS ON 
THE EARTH. — Col. iii. 2. 

The law of God respecting the objects and direc- 
tion of the affections is fundamental. It goes to the 
foundation ; for the direction of the affections — that 
is, what a man approves and loves, desires and wills 
— determines what he now is, and is prophetic of his 
destiny. 

There is lodged in every human heart Heaven's 
dower to the child, — an immense capacity for affec- 
tion, by which I mean, for desire, approval, interest, 
love, hope, enthusiasm, — an interior force, without 
which man were but wood or stone, — a perennial 
force, impelling him this way or that, and the centre 
of all life and energy. At the outset these affections, 
like the waters of a fountain on a mountain's sum- 
mit, may easily flow in any direction. But some 
way, east or west, or north or south, they must flow. 
Thus two primary facts present themselves. First, 
man is so constituted that he must take interest in 
something ; that is, using the word in the large sense 
of the text, his affections must be set on some corre- 



WORLD LINESS. 



17 



sponding objects, while attachment to one class of 
objects implies a comparative exclusion of other ob- 
jects. And secondly, what the man is, morally 
speaking, depends on the character and direction of 
these affections. 

Thus a man's hopes, fears, troubles, anxieties, 
thoughts, desires, may be confined chiefly to what 
relates to his personal gratification. And because of 
this direction of the affections, we call him a selfish 
man. On the contrary, a man's prevailing thoughts 
and interests may be occupied with the well-being 
of others, — so occupied that his own interests shall 
drop into a secondary place ; and from this fact we 
call him a benevolent, a generous, or public-spirited 
man. The same man might have been either. The 
difference is not in the original constitutional affec- 
tions, so much as in their direction. The same 
capacity of being interested which, fixed exclusively 
on a man's self, makes him narrow and sordid, fixed 
on other objects would have made him the world's 
benefactor. 

This necessity of being interested in something 
may exhibit itself in the. most various ways. The 
affections may be condensed into one strong desire 
to build up a fortune, or into a craving to be known, 
and noticed, and distinguished, or for popular honors^ 
and applause. Again, they may be fixed on objects 
remote as well as near, invisible and intangible as 
well as those palpable to sense ; they may be en- 
grossed by some pursuit, by objects of taste, by ob- 
jects unseen, or on the other side of the globe. The 
ideal beauty and grandeur to which the artist gives 

2 * 



18 



W0BLDL1NESS. 



his heart is no clearly denned thing, but floats, a 
vague glory, between the earth and the heavens. 
What a devotion of the affections in the man of 
science ; and yet that devotion relates to laws and 
relations which lie back of material phenomena, and 
are visible only to the eye of reason. And in the 
same way, a man's controlling interest and desire 
may be to do God's will and to live so as to have 
his approval. Certainly it is as possible for man to 
have this for the controlling object of life, as it is to 
do the world's will and to have the world's approval. 

What I would have observed from these remarks 
is this : that man is so constituted that he must take 
interest in something ; and that the moral difference 
between men finally is determined by the different 
directions given or permitted to the affections. I 
come now to another consideration. These objects, 
various as they are, may be divided into two great 
classes ; classes so unlike, that only one can be su- 
preme, and the other must be subordinate in their 
relation to human affections, — supreme and subor- 
dinate. The most religious man is, and ought to 
be, interested in the affairs of a world where God 
has placed him to live and to labor ; and on the 
other hand, the most irreligious man, in spite of 
himself, feels the attraction and the power of the 
religious ideas which float in the moral atmosphere 
around him. But notwithstanding this, the objects 
of the affections may be divided into two great 
classes, which, even when running harmoniously and 
parallel with each other, are so distinct in their es- 
sential characteristics, that we must practically so far 



WOKLDLINESS. 



19 



choose between them, that in any conflict of motives 
one class will be subordinate and the other have a 
preponderating and controlling weight and influence. 

One class belongs to the earth. If this life in- 
cluded the whole of man's existence, — if all the 
prizes we can gain wither as we enter the sick- 
chamber, and drop altogether from our grasp when 
the hand moulders in the grave, — still the affections 
would exist in the heart, and they would still de- 
mand their objects ; but the only objects on which 
they could rest, because they would be the only 
ones which would have a real existence to the mind, 
would be such as could be possessed and enjoyed on 
the earth. There would still be innumerable objects 
to engross them ; but this great fact that all must 
end at death would determine not only the direction 
of the affections, but the character resulting from 
that direction. There is thus one great class of ob- 
jects for the affections which belong to this world, 
and which have this startling peculiarity about them, 
that, be interested in them as much as we may, we 
lea\e them behind at the grave's mouth. 

I do not say that all these objects* do not deserve, 
and were not intended by Providence, under certain 
restrictions, to attract the strong, though certainly 
not the controlling, interest of the human heart. But 
are there no objects in which a human being can be 
interested except those from which death must di- 
vorce him ? 

No, all does not end with death. And the most 
important characteristic of this life is, that it is a 
probation and discipline for a continued existence 



20 



WORLDLINESS. 



which reaches beyond the grave. No doubt man is 
placed in relations to objects on the earth which de- 
mand interest ; and they will always have quite as 
much as they can rightfully demand. But there are 
other objects to which, if he be an immortal and 
accountable creature, he stands in quite as intimate, 
and infinitely more important relations. 

As we look forward, there rise before us, — no de- 
ceptive mirage on the horizon, but as absolute reali- 
ties, the most important things that can interest a 
reasonable being, — salvation, perdition, accountabil- 
ity, death, immortality, retribution, and the incom- 
municable name of God ! In a few years our des- 
tiny is to depend on the nature of our relations to 
these realities. We approach daily nearer to them, 
and in a brief time, when all that we now look upon 
is faded and perished from us, these will remain. 
This fact changes the whole aspect of the present 
life, making all those objects which before were 
ends mere means to a higher end, — not less impor- 
tant on that account, but means and not the end. 
And the teaching of the Apostle is, that we should 
live with a primary reference to these spiritual reali- 
ties, and that among our conflicting motives and 
interests these should possess a controlling and su- 
preme authority. I have thus dwelt on the explana- 
tion of the text, hoping to bring out the distinction 
which the Apostle makes between the worldly and 
the religious life. A supreme devotion to the inter- 
ests of this life constitutes the worldly man. The 
religious man is one, not who flies, like the anchor- 
ites of old, from that scene of duty and labor where 



WORLDLIXESS. 



21 



God has placed him, but over whose conduct, amidst 
the duties and trials and pleasures of the earth, these 
realities of the spiritual world exert a controlling in- 
fluence. 

But is it possible to feel that interest in what is 
spiritual and invisible, which we feel in what presses 
upon the senses ? Is it possible ? Let the martyrs 
who have died, and thought it triumph to die for 
their faith, answer. Let the multitudes of the ob- 
scure and unknown who have found strength in 
temptation, undying hope for the affections, the best 
comfort of want and sorrow and trial, the best shel- 
ter from the storms of life, in their faith in these in- 
visible realities, give the answer. Nay, I will not 
speak of its possibility, when the best virtue of the 
world finds its only stable and permanent support in 
a faith which connects the soul with God, with the 
moral order of the world, and with the prospects of 
eternity. 

Nay, suppose some being from another sphere, ig- 
norant respecting the actual character of mankind, 
knowing only the general fact that men are placed 
on the earth for a few years only, but* are immortal, 
accountable, dependent on the Almighty, and des- 
tined to a spiritual life beyond the grave for which 
this life is but a school of preparation, — suppose 
such a being should visit us, what might he expect 
of men as the natural result of this their condition ? 
Assuredly, a prevailing universal devotion to this 
preparation. He would expect that the world would 
exhibit a scene parallel in some respects to that wit- 
nessed among the inhabitants of a country whose 



22 



WORLDLINESS. 



population is stirred and roused to the idea of emi- 
gration to some foreign shore. Their foreseen de- 
parture gives a softened interest to the scenes which 
they are to leave, and awakens a greater kindness 
and consideration towards the friends from whom 
they depart. While they remain, they must still 
perform the ordinary duties which belong to their 
lot. But the subject of removal overtops all others, 
while anticipations and schemes and plans and prep- 
arations for the new country to which they go fur- 
nish an absorbing subject for interest to all minds. 
So might this higher being expect that we, pilgrims 
whose staves are already in our hands, colonists so 
soon to depart for another country, should make 
whatever bears on that future condition the great 
subject of interest. 

But what is it that this being of a higher sphere 
would perceive to be the actual state of man ? 
"What objects of interest stand first and foremost? 
Are they not, to a startling extent, objects which 
have not the highest value even here, but which are 
also in their nature of the most transient descrip- 
tion ? We build houses, which we scarcely enter 
and occupy, before a silent company meets to bear 
us out of their open doors to the grave. We hoard 
up gains beyond the needs of ourselves or our chil- 
dren, as if the end of human existence were accu- 
mulation, and yet in a brief time it is all to be left, 
very likely to be the means of temptation to those 
who are dearest to us. We are engrossed by the 
shows and ambitions and rivalries of life, though 
knowing that in a few years all is to be laid aside 



WORLDLINESS. 



23 



for the winding-sheet and the tomb. Nay, not all ! 
— for then we enter within the circle of those spirit- 
ual realities for which we have teen preparing or 
neglecting to prepare. 

But after all, it is said, there is much delusion 
here. Why not enjoy life, and make the most of it ? 
There is a vast deal of priestly cant about this idea 
of worldliness, about its perils and its mischiefs. It 
is very well for these dull commonplaces to be reit- 
erated from the pulpit ; they do no harm, provided 
they are not taken for more than they are worth ; 
at any rate, it is easy not to listen. 

But is this the true view ? Is all that religion has 
taught respecting a worldly life a mere matter of 
cant and delusion ? If so, let the pulpit be disa- 
bused of this folly, and come to something that is 
real. Suppose that, convinced of its correctness, 
and desirous not to trifle with himself or with you, 
the preacher were to put this worldly view of life 
into the form of an exhortation. If the worldly view 
is the true one, let us adopt it and abide by it. Sup- 
pose from this place I were to exhort you thus : — 
Set your affections on things of the earth. Let 
worldly success be the main thing. These things 
of which religion speaks are but shadows, while here 
around us are substantial realities, — power, wealth, 
social prominence, — in these there is something real. 
Cherish first, then, the ambition to rise in the world, 
cherish an aspiring ambition ; crowd, supplant, seek 
the chief place so long as you can do it in a defensi- 
ble way, only be careful somehow to rise ; or let the 
great object be to accumulate wealth, which repre- 



24 



WORLDLIXESS. 



sents and commands so many forms of earthly good ; 
or give yourself up to the shows of life ; or let the 
main thing be to enjoy yourself, fill your home with 
luxuries and pleasures, rear up your children to think 
much of self-indulgence, of dress, of social distinc- 
tion ; make the most of this brief life, be rid of these 
disturbing fancies about the future, and enjoy your- 
self while you can, for death and darkness hasten, 
and the time will soon be passed ! Were I to speak 
such words, you would think that I was mad, or 
mocking you. Away with these impious falsehoods, 
you would say, and away with him who dares to 
utter them ! Let us, once in the week at least, hear 
the truth, though we only hear to neglect it ! And 
why would such an exhortation here shock the most 
hardened and corrupt man on earth ? Because every 
man in his heart knows that it is a blasphemous 
falsehood. And yet this lesson, this mocking lesson, 
is the one which the world is all the time teaching, 
and, what is more, baptizes it with the name of 
worldly wisdom. Alas ! in how many homes on the 
earth, in how many homes of the Christian world, 
in how many homes which call themselves Chris- 
tian, is it the ever-repeated lesson, taught from 
morning till night, not in words perhaps, but in 
pursuits and tastes and example ! In how many 
hearts is it the only iesson ever heeded or heard, 
except as one hears a dirge, to enjoy its mel- 
ancholy music, and to repel its prophetic omens ! 
To what point does the prevailing spirit of world- 
ly culture tend, but to this very point of world- 
Jiness ? 



TTORLDLINESS. 



25 



I deny not, I fully recognize, the many virtues 
consistent with all this. An atheist, as a matter of 
worldly wisdom, will be honest up to a certain 
point ; generous, just, forbearing, and discreet, up to 
a certain point ; and will be careful to avoid the 
vices which put in jeopardy health and respectabil- 
ity. Who does not know that all this may coexist 
with an essential worldliness of spirit, without one 
real thought of God, or futurity, or the actual des- 
tiny of man ? I know not that he whose barns were 
full, and who said, " Soul, thou hast much goods 
laid up for many years ; take thine ease, eat, drink, 
and enjoy," — ■ was a vicious man, but rather a self- 
indulgent man, who had labored hard and meant to 
enjoy the fruit. It did not occur to him that there 
was any use to be made of these accumulations ex- 
cept for his own pleasure. When his barns were 
full, it did not occur to him, in the words of one of 
the Fathers, to make " storehouses of the poor and 
needy," nor to use his means as God's servant to 
promote man's welfare. All ended with earthly and 
personal gratification. But a voice came : " This 
night thy soul shall be required of thee ! " Where 
was the terror of that voice ? Not in the voice 
itself, which came to him in the night, so low that 
none else could hear ; not in any threatenings, but 
in the realities to which it awoke him. Terrible, be- 
cause it was all over ; because his treasures were laid 
up on earth and he must leave them ; because there 
was nothing beyond but darkness ; because, as " the 
fabled mandrake is said to be torn from the earth 
shrieking and with bleeding roots," he is torn from 

3 



26 



WORLD LINESS. 



the world where alone are his affections, his interests, 
and his pleasures. 

Surely it is a pleasant sight to see prosperous 
fortunes, and pleasant homes, and the young enter- 
ing upon their careers with ever opening and en- 
larging prospects of success. All these things are 
good, are God's gifts and opportunities, to be en- 
joyed with thankfulness, ' and used with liberality. 
But we cannot enter this place without acknowledg- 
ing that worldly success is but one of the secondary 
things in human life. At least let the words that 
we here read, the confessions that we make, the 
prayers that we utter, awaken us to the realities of 
our condition. 

And in these matters the preacher shall not take it 
on himself to speak as a prophet who passes through 
the fire unharmed, but as one who from his own 
infirmities is compelled to understand the infirmities 
that press upon us all. But because we are guilty 
and unworthy, shall we acquiesce in this poor and 
miserable state? Nay; let the sins which reproach 
us incite us to something better. 

What is our great moral danger? From what 
direction does temptation come to us, — not to the 
w T orld at large, but to us? We are not tempted, 
like the starving pauper, to steal; we are not tempted 
to lie, as they are who find in falsehood the only 
refuge from oppression. So far as sins are discred- 
itable, we are to a great extent protected even from 
the temptation. Who of us would venture to take 
much credit to himself for a degree of honesty which, 
in one whose family were starving, and who repelled 



WORLDLINESS. 



27 



the thought of immoral gain, would imply a kind 
of moral heroism ? Here is not our danger. Where 
does it lie ? It may be summed up in this one 
word, — worldliness. 

Worldliness takes different forms. There is the 
worldliness of want. The man pinched for bread, 
able to find work only at intervals and uncertainly, 
easily sinks into a kind of haggard worldliness, full 
of bitterness and jealousy, tempting him to drown 
in the riot of to-day the anxious forethought for to- 
morrow. Such a man can hardly occupy a middle 
ground. He must triumph over his lot by rising 
above it on a strong, ever-present, all-controlling 
religious faith, or he will sink under it into a world- 
liness the most terrible and intense, though by no 
means the most guilty. 

Then there is the worldliness of prosperity, which 
is of a different sort. Comfortable, decorous, and 
well conditioned, it wears what looks almost like the 
garb of an angel of light. One of its great offices 
is to cultivate the manners and the graces, to live by 
those prudential and amiable rules which, if they 
cannot quite turn earth into an Eden, would in the 
outward show create a feeble imitation of it. The 
worldliness of prosperity is so unexceptionable, has 
in it so little to offend, that it seems hard to make 
objection to it. We are hardly conscious of it, but 
— must we not all confess it ? — it is very hard for 
prosperity not to be worldly. We touch the earth 
at so many points, and at all so pleasantly, — we 
have on all sides so many points of attraction, and 
all* so agreeable, — that we are held down to the 



28 



WORLDLINESS. 



earth and the world, not by one coarse and hard 
iron chain, like the poor man, but by a thousand 
almost invisible silken cords, while the cords are 
themselves covered with garlands. They are fastened 
lightly around us, as if they were ornaments ; we 
are scarce conscious of them ; but somehow, when 
we would rise, we find them, not rudely, but gently, 
drawing us back to the earth. We have so many 
enjoyments, such means to enjoy, that we hardly 
wish for more. The multiplicity of our cares, our 
interests, our pleasures, fills and occupies the mind, 
and excludes the thought of God and heaven. These 
prosperities of life are like the mists which rise from 
the earth, of a summer twilight. Before we are 
aware, they are condensed into clouds which shut 
out the sky ; and yet for a time those clouds are 
golden, and we are content to lose the vision of the 
heavens while we gaze on their lustrous and ever- 
changing glories. But at length the light fades, the 
glory vanishes, and nothing is left but cloud and 
night. So these prosperities rise above us, and 
while we look on their brilliant hues, we are scarce 
conscious that they are excluding the heavens, until 
at length, as the sunset of life comes, we find that 
their splendor is gone, and only the chill and the 
darkness remain. 

But where is the difficulty with this worldliness ? 
In the very fact that it is worldliness. Because it 
turns a man into a creature of the earth, when his 
true destiny is to be a creature of heaven. Were 
there nothing beyond the grave, it might perhaps be 
the wise method of living. But it is the wise method 



WORLDLDTESS. 



29 



on this condition alone, — while in fact (shall we 
say, alas !) there is something beyond this life. The 
evil is, that it shuts out God from the world, as the 
present Sovereign and Ruler of heart and life ; forgets 
that the present state is one of probation, and makes 
it an end, and in so doing lowers the whole tone of 
feeling down to an earthly level. 

But what is the opposite of this state ? Let me 
describe it, through an example. A few r days since, 
I saw an old man, certain to die soon, and warned 
that death might come at any moment, — an old 
man, after threescore and ten years of toil, left in 
penury to depend on the chance charities of stran- 
gers. Among other things I said to him, " Do you 
ever grow weary of life ? do you wish to die or to 
live ? " Said he, " I have no will to live nor will 
to die ; my will is to do God's will." Said I, " You 
have been poor, but you have had many blessings." 
" Yes," said he, " always. The poor have hardships 
no doubt, but they also have great blessings." 
"How so?" I answered. "Why," said he, "one 
thing the poor have, — the poor have the promises." 
I said, " Even if you have had trials, you have been 
taken care of." " Yes," said he, " the Lord has 
always taken care of me, and I have never doubted 
his goodness." Said I, " How long have you felt in 
this way ? " Said he, " Forty years ago I gave my- 
self to the Lord, and he has never deserted me ; and, 
thank God, I have never deserted him." It was the 
language, very simple doubtless, of a man who 
stood inside the porch of death, and, knowing what 
death was, was prepared to meet it, — not in hot 



30 



WOKLDLIXESS, 



blood, not dragged with opiates, but in the calmness 
of hope. Here was a man living by faith ; — in the 
world, and laboring to his full strength in his lot, but 
governed, uplifted, inspired, by motives and hopes 
above the world. But, you ask, were these words 
all sincere? Were they not the commonplace 
phrases of a sect, and, half unconsciously perhaps, 
uttered to practise on my credulity? I had no rea- 
son to doubt they were sincere ; but suppose they 
were not, what then? It might be the worse for 
him, but what then ? The words might not be true 
to him, but they were true to the truth of things. 
True or not to him, they were the expression of the 
highest and holiest sentiments of which the human 
heart is capable. It described a state of mind which 
we might cheaply give the world to gain. Tell me, 
young man, were the choice given to you for the 
next forty years, — unbounded prosperity, success 
and enjoyment, and in the end to be without this 
trust in God ; or, without any of this success, to be 
able to say, For forty years I have endeavored to 
serve God, — which would you choose? I should 
mock you, if I supposed that any except one choice 
were possible. And yet, though without the ex- 
tremes of fortune, that moral choice you are making. 
Hereafter one or the other you are to say, — I have 
served the world ; or, I have served God. 

It becomes us to understand the serious conditions 
and destinies of this* mortal life. Our peril is, not 
from gross vices nor from any well-considered relig- 
ious scepticism, but that we should sink into worldly 
insensibility, — awake to all on the earth and insensi- 



WORLDLINESS. 



31 



ble to all above it. We are so well off that there 
seems to be no need of anything more. Religion 
tends, in such a state, to sink down into a mere 
matter of philosophical speculation, or to the poorer 
level of one of the fine arts. Let us — such is the 
language of this state — have no over-zeal: let us 
have that tolerance, or rather indifference, which 
holds all religious opinions of equal value, because 
it holds them in no value at all. Let us be zealous 
in the work of accumulation, vehement in political 
strife, anxious to gain the world's favor, but no over- 
zeal about religion. Observe its forms, so far as is 
convenient; let the church stand open one day in 
the week, — and yet perhaps better imitate the cus- 
toms of lands which turn the Sabbath into a day 
of amusement. Educate the young for worldly suc- 
cess, but do not disturb their minds with supersti- 
tious ideas about duty and prayer, about useful 
labors among men, and the desire of God's approval. 
I do not say that this is a description of society. If 
all mankind had sunk thus below the level of relig- 
ious convictions, it would perish from its own de- 
generacy. But the tendency of the worldly spirit is 
towards this state. 

Is this a true view of life ? Nay ; not so. It 
is time for us to awake out of sleep, and to know 
where we stand. If there be no God, if Revelation 
be a fiction, if the omens of the heart, instead of 
being its prophecies, are its superstitions, if those 
faiths which have been the world's life, which have 
fed its virtue and inspired its heroism, are fictions, 
then let them be treated as such. But if they are 



32 



WORLDLINESS. 



realities, let them be throned as such above the 
mind. If the world be God, then act out the idol- 
atrous maxim, We must do what the world bids. 
But if the Lord be God, then, with no coward heart, 
take for your guiding words those words which so 
many heroic and saintly men have lived by, — As 
for me, I stand on the side of the Lord. Say it, and 
be not ashamed to say it, — In this battle of life, I 
stand upon the Lord's side ! 



SEEM ON III. 



MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 

BUT JESTJS ANSWERED THEM, MY FATHER WORKETH HITHERTO, 

and i work. — John V. 17. 

Our faith in the teachings of Christ, as possessing 
any peculiar authority different from and above that 
of any good and wise man, depends on our belief in 
the reality of his miraculous character. The subject 
of miracles becomes thus one of the greatest prac- 
tical moment, for the view we take of it decides 
whether we are to regard Christianity as a mere 
philosophical system, or a divine and authoritative 
religion. 

It is obvious, that, during the last quarter of a cen- 
tury, scepticism has very much changed its ground. 
The fundamental idea which underlies nearly every 
sceptical argument of any note in our day, is the 
absolute incredibility of anything miraculous. It is 
so aside from the ordinary course of nature that the 
mind, it is said, refuses to admit it as a reality. It 
may be doubted if men often reject the Gospel mira- 
cles because of -any deficiency in the historical evi- 
dence or in the essential trustworthiness of the Gos- 



34 MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 

pel narratives. It would, we suppose, be generally 
admitted that there is an accumulation of proof, 
such as sustains our belief in no other history of dis- 
tant events, — an amount of proof such as every day 
in our courts of justice is regarded as overwhelming 
and decisive, in cases where not only property, but 
even life, is at stake. Those who doubt would gen- 
erally say, There is proof enough of the reality of the 
Gospel miracles, if the thing were provable. The 
difficulty goes back of this to a supposed intrinsic 
incredibility in regard to everything miraculous, not 
to be overcome by any evidence. Thus such a 
writer as Strauss — and the same might be said 
of nearly every other sceptical author — at the out- 
set assumes the absurdity of a miracle, and through- 
out his work takes it for granted that any narrative 
of what is miraculous is for that reason certainly 
and necessarily false ; while the famous argument 
of Hume, the strongest statement of the difficulty 
ever made, that a miracle cannot be believed be- 
cause it is a violation of our experience, derives its 
force, not from its soundness, for it is a manifest 
sophism, assuming the very point in dispute, but 
from its being an appeal to the vague feeling that a 
miracle is essentially incredible, an4 so incapable of 
being proved. 

The subject of miracles divides itself into two 
parts, which I am careful to distinguish because the 
remarks which I have to make apply to one part 
alone. The first question, in treating of the general 
subject of miracles, relates to their credibility or in- 
credibility as such. Are they essentially so incredi- 



MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 35 



ble as to lie beyond the reach of evidence, or do they 
lie within the circle of possibility and of proof? 
This is one question. But admitting their possi- 
bility, the second question is, whether those recorded 
in the Gospels are sustained by sufficient evidence ? 
This is a question of historical facts, and the proper 
mode of treating it is that pursued by the various 
writers on Christian evidences, such as Lardner and 
Paley and Norton. With this second question I 
have now nothing to do. I shall confine myself to 
the previous, and in our day more important ques- 
tion, which relates to the alleged incredibility of 
miracles as such, and universally. 

The precise point to which I would direct your 
thoughts is this. I wish to show that a miracle has 
in it no such intrinsic incredibility as to exile it 
from the circle of things capable of being proved by 
evidence. I wish to show that, so far from its being 
incredible, it enters as one of the most prominent 
facts into the frame of the universe and the order of 
Providence. "Whether any particular miracle has 
taken place is to be determined by the evidence 
appropriate to each particular case. What I pro- 
pose to show is, that miracle as such is no excres- 
cence on the order of nature, not something excep- 
tional, to be apologized for, to be accounted for, but 
an essential part of that order, and therefore just as 
susceptible of proof as any other facts transpiring 
under the general order and law of Providence. 

Before entering upon the proof of this main point, 
however, it is needful that we should form to our- 
selves some just idea of the nature of miraculous 



86 MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 



interference. What, then, is a miracle ? To un- 
derstand what it really is, we must consider the ex- 
tent to which the Divine energy is all the time put 
forth in creation. I suppose it may be said, without 
qualification, that every originating cause is spirit- 
ual. Matter propagates power, transmits it onward 
from the original source, exhibits it to the senses, is a 
secondary and transition cause, but never the origi- 
nal cause. I raise my hand; the originating cause 
is in the will. The spirit wills, and nerve and mus- 
cle obey. And so in the universe. When we look 
for originating causes, we never stop in matter. Of 
the series of causes and effects, each link is formed 
to depend on a preceding one. And yet there must 
have been a first link, and that first link does not 
hang self-suspended in the air. 

The series of causes and effects carries us back to 
mind. The first link of this mighty chain hangs 
suspended to the throne of God, and it is his power 
which, vibrating through its inert lengths, appears in 
the last link of the series not less than in the first. 
And thus it is not more the teaching of Scripture 
than it is of philosophy, that in all, acting through 
all, presiding over all the laws of the universe, is the 
universal present power of. God. 

But in acknowledging the existence of a God, we 
admit the possibility of miracle. For he who con- 
trols all the laws of the universe may at his will 
modify the action of any particular law. A miracle 
supposes the introduction of no new power. It is 
wrought by the selfsame power that is all the time 
working through the myriad ministries of nature. 



MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 37 



It is the same God who gives life at first, and again 
raises the dead to life. A miracle does not imply 
that God is not acting all the time, does not imply 
that he is acting more at one time than another. 
Essentially it is no more than a new mode of Divine 
manifestation. And that it is so, appears from the 
fact that the continued repetition of the miracle 
would take from it its miraculous character, and 
transform it into law. 

We confuse ourselves by considering that essen- 
tial to miracle which in reality is the result only of 
the point of view from which we regard it. Stand- 
ing below the cloud on our human side, accustomed 
to a limited circle of laws, and ignorant of the Divine 
purposes, a miracle must seem altogether different 
from what it does to those who stand on the Divine 
side, and who are witnesses of the purposes of God 
and of the forth-issuing of his power. Standing on 
our human side, and witnessing immediate effects 
alone, a miracle seems a violation of the order of 
Providence, or, if the term is preferred, the order of 
nature ; while to superior beings, standing on the 
Divine side and beholding the Divine purpose, it 
might appear only a more complete carrying out of 
the real order and ends of Providence. From our 
human point of view, miracles may appear like the 
crossing tracks of planets, which, seen from the earth, 
seem to be entangled in inextricable derangements, 
but which, viewed from the sun, appear moving in 
their circles in a divine harmony. 

It is from the neglect of this obvious distinction 
that the chief difficulties of the subject arise. We 

4 v 



38 MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 



first impose on ourselves by a false definition of the 
word law, as if it had a substantial existence in 
itself, independent of God, — as if it were a sort of 
central Fate, to whose behests the Almighty himself 
must submit. And when it is seen that such an 
idea is inadmissible, it is tacitly assumed that we 
are acquainted with all the laws which relate to this 
world, and that they not only are unchangeable, but 
that God has done all that he purposes to do. And 
assuming this, scepticism loves to stigmatize miracle 
as an afterthought on the part of the Deity. As if 
the admission of miracle were a confession of over- 
sight in the origin of things, a contrivance to remedy 
unforeseen defect, and therefore incredible. But the 
charge is utterly groundless. He who believes in 
miracle does not imagine it to be something unfore- 
seen, nor an expedient to remedy an unforeseen diffi- 
culty, but a foreseen event in the general order, and 
an essential part of that order. He does not sup- 
pose miracle a violation of law, except in the sec- 
ondary sense in which there is always a violation of 
law when a superior force bends and controls an in- 
ferior one, — any more than when the lifted arm, or 
the arrow shot into the air, resists the power of grav- 
itation. It is a variation of so much of the order of 
nature as we are in the habit of seeing, but a varia- 
tion produced by a competent cause ; and no viola- 
tion of law, because in harmony with the great end 
for which all laws exist. Nay, the miracle, we may 
better believe, is a foreseen and intended part of the 
general order, and none the less foreseen or intended 
by Providence because startling to us. A mariner 



MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 39 



drifts, day after day, on the ocean's stream in the 
midst of a summer calm, along a shore with which 
he is unfamiliar. The night sinks down over tran- 
quil waters, and the level rays of the morning sun 
glance in fire over the smooth surface of the deep. 
No sound comes over the sea, and he seems sep- 
arated from the universe of living things. But at 
night the winds break forth, the waters begin to 
heave and swell, the mountainous waves chase each 
other towards the rocky coast, when suddenly the 
stroke of a bell is heard, — scarce heard at first, but 
louder and ever louder, — tolling, pausing, tolling, 
ringing, — its strange chimes blending like a fearful 
dirge with the storm, and heard, now low, now loud, 
amidst the varying fury of the gale. The established 
order which the mariner had observed was silence. 
He knew not that a wise foresight had hung by the 
coast of peril this voice, silent when all was peace- 
ful, but which, when the storm beat, and the waves 
rose, and danger threatened, should be ready to 
clang forth its warnings. "Would this be a violation 
of law ? No, only a variation of the accustomed 
order, produced by sufficient causes, but causes not 
coming forth into action until the appointed moment 
had arrived. Long beforehand it had been arranged 
and prepared, so that the very violation of the ac- 
customed order was an essential part of the real 
order. 

A better illustration still of the manner in which 
a variation from the accustomed order may be but a 
part of a more extended order. A story is told of a 
clock on one of the high cathedral-towers of the 



40 MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 



older world, so constructed that at the close of a 
century it strikes the years as it ordinarily strikes 
the hoars. As a hundred years come to a close, sud- 
denly, in the immense mass of complicated mech- 
anism, a little wheel turns, a pin slides into the 
appointed place, and in the shadows of the night 
the bell tolls a requiem over the generations which 
during a century have lived and labored and been 
buried around it. One of these generations might 
live and die, and witness nothing peculiar. The 
clock would have what we call an established order 
of its own ; but what should we say when, at the 
midnight which brought the century to a close, it 
sounded over the sleeping city, rousing all to listen to 
the world's age ? Would it be a violation of law ? 
No, only a variation of the accustomed order, pro- 
duced by the intervention of a force always existing, 
but never appearing in this way till the appointed 
moment had arrived. The tolling of the century 
would be a variation from the observed order of the 
clock; but to an artist in constructing it, it would 
have formed a part of that order. So a miracle is a 
variation of the order of nature as it has appeared to 
us ; but to the Author of nature it was a part of that 
predestined order, — a part of that order of which he 
is at all times the immediate Author and Sustain er, 
— miraculous to us, seen frorn our human point of 
view, but no miracle to God ; — to our circumscribed 
vision a violation of law, but to God only & part 
in the great plan and progress of the law of the 
universe. 

The incredibility of miracle does not arise from 



MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 41 



any want of power on the part of the Creator to 
change the accustomed order of things ; to suppose 
this would be atheism. On the other hand, the 
peculiarity of a miracle is not that it is an effect 
without a cause, a phenomenon of which there is no 
sufficient account to be given, but that it is an effect 
which under the circumstances we are compelled to 
refer, not to any secondary cause, but to the great 
First Cause of all things, — a phenomenon which is 
to be referred, rfbt to any secondary law, but to that. 
Power in which all the laws of the world originate. 

Leaving these general considerations, I proceed 
now to another and main point which I have in 
view. The proposition which I hope to show to be 
well founded is this, that miracle, instead of being a 
violation of law, exists as an essential part of the 
great order of things. In doing this, I shall take 
you from revelation to nature, from the declarations 
of religion to the discoveries of science. I do it the 
more readily, because it is very evident that for re- 
ligious faith few things are more essential than that 
the harmony between God's providence in nature 
and God's providence in revelation should be clearly 
perceived. Here,' it is claimed, are two manifesta- 
tions of God, the book of nature and the book of 
revelation. Do they agree together ? Science dis- 
covers in the natural world new classes of facts. 
Formerly theologians, if those facts were inconsist- 
ent with their theories, denied them, and imprisoned 
or burnt the teachers of them as heretics. This did 
not answer then, and still less does it answer now. 
There is but one way, and that is, when science has 

4 * • 



42 MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 

clearly made out a fact, for theology to show its re- 
lations to faith. We must come to the truth, and 
be content to stand on the truth. The great exten- 
sion of modem science makes this now the most 
essential question of theology, namely, whether na- 
ture is to furnish reasons for religious doubt or relig- 
ious faith. And this view I dwell upon, because it 
is the vital point, and because, as I believe, it shows 
the harmony between the order of nature as revealed 
by modern science and the order of providence in 
revelation. 

Do not, however, let it be supposed that science, 
when it has reached the position of science, has ever 
been the enemy of faith. There is a common way 
of speaking which implies that it will not do to ex- 
amine theology too carefully by the lights of science ; 
that, after all, Christian faith has to contend for ex- 
istence with science. There could not be a greater 
misapprehension of facts. Doubtless there was a 
time, while science was in its rude, chaotic begin- 
ning, when its tendencies were sceptical. The sud- 
den, startling blaze of new discoveries drew off atten- 
tion from the great illumination of the world, — the 
torchlight put out the sunlight. Science, intoxicated 
with success, grew daring, self-confident, and unbe- 
lieving. There have been times when it was athe- 
istic. The rude, vague science of earlier days was 
enough for doubt, but not enough for faith ; as it 
has advanced, and learned to read more clearly the 
works of God, it has grown believing. Thus many 
departments which once were thought subversive of 
all religious belief, now furnish the most impressive 



MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 43 

analogies and proofs to the believer. Once theolo- 
gians were alarmed at the study of anatomy and 
physiology, and now they regard them as an arsenal 
from which to draw effective weapons for the de- 
fence of faith. Less than two hundred and fifty 
years ago, theology in its alarm imprisoned Galileo ; 
and now the theologian derives from the laws of 
astronomy the sublimest illustrations of spiritual 
truth. Geology was thought at first to be under- 
mining faith; but it is now seen to have been only 
deepening and confirming the foundations. 

Thus scepticism deserts one field of science after 
another, as fast as they are really explored, whilst it 
clings only to those about which least is known. I 
do not say that all men of science are believing 
men ; a man may have investigated all the physical 
facts, and have thought less than a child of its bear- 
ings on spiritual truth, and thus never have felt the 
force of evidence which he has himself collected, just 
as he may not have used for its true end the wealth 
he has accumulated ; but I say this, — that the ten- 
dencies of modern science are towards faith, and so 
decidedly, that every thinking believer has learned to 
feel sure that, when a new department of science is 
fairly laid open, he will find in it new supports of 
religious faith. At present, physical science, so far 
as its tendencies are concerned, is turning over its 
scepticism to metaphysics ; while itself scouts and 
repudiates and disproves, by what it declares to 
be incontestable facts, assertions and arguments on 
which disbelief was so much accustomed to rely. 
The objections to miracles most felt arise, I have 



44 MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 



said, from the observation of the universal preva- 
lence of law. Everything seems to proceed by in- 
evitable law; everywhere there is law, and only law, 
and no place for miracle. Here lies the whole sub- 
stance of the difficulty, as it is ordinarily presented. 

I answer, in general, that the difficulty has no real 
foundation, that it is not sustained by the facts, that 
its whole force depends on an unwarranted limita- 
tion of the definition of law, and that the explora- 
tions of modern science — in the inferior sense in 
which we are accustomed to use the word, restrict- 
ing it to the more obvious phenomena of nature — 
do not meet the facts in the case. These explora- 
tions have shown that beyond this there is a higher 
and larger law, which includes miracle within its 
sweep as an essential part of the great order. 

In these revelations Science furnishes the means 
of correcting the very doubts which in a less mature 
and advanced state she herself had done something 
to create. And shall we not believe that there is 
something providential in the fact, that, when scepti- 
cism had reached the point of -denying the possibil- 
ity of -miracles, a higher Science should have reached 
the same point, coming round through the circle of 
her own explorations, and bearing in her hands the 
irrefragable evidence of the credibility of miracles ? 
It is a remarkable fact, that he who now rejects 
miracle on the ground of its intrinsic incredibility 
finds himself confronted not so much by theology as 
by physical science. Changing places, science be- 
gins to teach theology a lesson of faith. He who 
would be rid of miracle must first be rid of modern 
physical science. 



MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 45 



What I wish to urge is this, — not only that there 
may have been miracle, but that it enters into the 
very constitution and order of the world, — that it 
enters into all the analogies of nature, and is thus as 
susceptible of proof as any other facts in the natural 
order of things. And in showing this, there are 
three important and decisive facts which demand 
attention. 

1. The first, to use a phrase -of Butlers, is, that 
the scheme of things to which we belong " is not a 
fixed, but a progressive one." The word progress, as 
commonly used, includes more or less of the idea of 
improvement. And doubtless in this case this might 
be a just use of the word. But it is not necessary 
to the argument, and I will not contest the point as 
to whether the progress is or is not towards a higher 
condition of things. I use the word progress in this 
sense. The scheme of things to winch we imme- 
diately belong is a progressive one in the sense of 
there being a movement onward, a succession of 
events, a fluid, flowing, and not a fixed state. This 
cannot be said to be a discovery of modern science, 
but science has established the truth of it by new 
and overwhelming evidence. Why, we are incom- 
petent to say, but it is abundantly evident that the 
fundamental law of the universe is progress. It is 
recognized in our ordinary speech, when we speak 
of eras and epochs, of causes and results. Astron- 
omy fancies that it discovers some indications of it 
in the starry worlds. Geology finds it in the pro- 
gress of our globe from chaos and desolation up to 
that condition in which it became a fit abode for 



46 MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 



man. Science affirms that this law of progress has 
controlled the fortunes of the material universe ; the 
historian traces it in the annals of the human race ; 
and religion, looking forward, as history does back- 
ward, assures us that the same law reaches into the 
future, as it has reached over the past. 

2. The second fact which science has in a meas- 
ure discovered, and entirely established, is, that this 
progress of the world, so far as it can be traced, has 
been carried on in part by what, for the lack of a 
better name, we call general laws or laws of nature. 
Thus, go back to the earliest geological epoch, and 
it is found that the same laws were in force which 
are in existence now; from the beginning the same 
laws have wrought in and through each succeeding 
change. For example, gravitation, chemical attrac- 
tion, and laws like these, through all the successive 
stages of our globe's history', we are told, can be 
proved to have existed and operated and remained 
the same as they are found at this day. The same 
essential laws controlled the growth of vegetable 
and animal life. So unchanged have these laws 
been, that the naturalist, from a single fossil scale of 
an extinct race of fishes, can divine its size and form 
and habits, or from a single bone dug out of the 
earth, from its tomb of ages, can reconstruct the 
whole animal, determine its food, its modes of life, 
and the general character of the region and climate 
where it lived. 

But while these laws have remained unchanged, 
science affirms that it has discovered a new fact, 
namely : — 



MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NQT UNNATURAL. 47 



3. That the progress of the world has not been 
carried on by these laws alone. It shows, by what it 
treats as equally undoubted and unquestionable evi- 
dence, that this progress has also, in part, been car- 
ried on by successive interpositions of the Creative 
Power. It is not Theology, it is Science, which 
affirms that race after race of plants and animals 
has lived on the earth and then perished, and their 
place been supplied by new races. She computes 
the species now extinct, of which nothing is left but 
their fossil remains, disinterred from the successive 
strata of the globe, by thousands. She affirms that 
the different species of animals now alive on the 
earth for the most part date back in geological his- 
tory but a little way. Their existence is but a re- 
cent thing, while man belongs to the most recent 
period of all. Independent of revelation, Science 
affirms, on evidence of her own, that there is every 
reason to believe that man's existence on earth 
reaches back over only a few thousands of years. 
To such an extent have these discoveries been car- 
ried, that Science points her finger to the place 
in the world's progress where one race ended and 
another began. 

And while Science does this, on evidence of her 
own, she asserts that the more recent race is not a 
development of one that went before, but that with 
it began a new order of existence ; that is, with 
each new race has been a beginning of organized 
life, evoked from dust and nothingness, by that 
Power which speaks and it is done, which com- 
mands and it stands fast. 



48 MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 



This, adopting theological instead of scientific 
language, is the very idea of miracle ; namely, that 
it is a phenomenon which we are obliged from the 
nature of the case to refer back to no subordinate 
agencies permanently at work in the world, but to 
the originating cause of what we look on. 

But still comes up the feeling which is the main 
source of all the difficulty, and which to all evidence 
still replies : A miracle is incredible. God cannot 
have interposed but in the ordinary way ; that is to 
say, God is excluded from manifesting himself, ex- 
cept in the few ways with which we personally, in 
our little round of daily life, are familiar. God not 
only has not, but cannot, manifest himself in any 
other way. — This is a somewhat confident assump- 
tion on the part of man ! 

Miracles incredible ! impossible! not even suscep- 
tible of proof! Too bold words these for man, grop- 
ing about on his little ant-hill in an obscure corner 
of the universe. Too bold words these, which under- 
take to set metes and bounds for the action of Al- 
mighty God. 

" I cannot believe a miracle ; it is incredible, it 
violates all experience, and saps the foundation of all 
evidence." Ah ! is it so ? If you cannot trust the 
religion of Heaven, put, at least, some confidence in 
the science of man. Retreat back in time through 
ages that are gone, and from some empyrean height 
behold, as science discloses it, the progress of the 
world's history which Ave inhabit. Go back to the 
time when the solid granite settled and hardened, 
the bed of the visible world ; when naught appeared 



MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 49 

but winds and waters lashing the rocky shores, and 
volcanoes lighting up the dreary breadth of night, — a 
waste as yet without sign of life, — nothing but a vast 
desolation where yet warred the half-subdued forces 
of chaos. But wait. Move on the ages in which 
Omnipotence acts. And behold, you know not how, 
the surface of continents is changed ; they are cov- 
ered by a strange vegetation. The dead world is 
fresh and blooming with vegetable life. Who sowed 
these continents of rock? Who introduced these 
new forms of organized matter, impressed on them 
their laws, endued them with a perennial and repro- 
ductive energy? And more than this. The lakes 
and. seas are filled with a higher kind of life, the 
reeds and ferns are crushed and the palms bent by 
the enormous bulk of animals, the air is burdened 
with the wings of birds, the world is peopled with 
life. Yesterday it was not, to-day it is. Between 
that yesterday and to-day there has been creation, 
interposition, miracle, God ! Though it wrought 
silently as light, invisibly as gravitation, the power of 
God has intervened. But pause not yet. Move on 
ages that divide the great circle of eternity. Like 
shadows in a dream, change upon change comes on 
the surface of the globe. New races of animals 
and of plants appear, and ancient races are seen no 
more. In fairer forms, clothed with a different vege- 
tation, islands and continents spread out surrounded 
by summer seas. And lo ! the manifest lord and 
head of this new creation appears, a new creation 
still, — man, — with form erect and eyes that can 
look upward to the heavens. Thus far Nature has 

5 



50 MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL, 

been inarticulate ; those tbat were nourished on her 
bosom understood her not. But here is a new uni- 
verse, a step upward to a higher level ; here is a cre- 
ation of Mind. The last inhabitant has reason to 
understand, has a voice to utter, the indistinct teach- 
ings of nature. Over the new-formed w T orld he be- 
holds a God, and his newly awakened reason re- 
peats : — 

" These are thy glorious works, Parent of good ! 
Almighty ! thine this universal frame 
Thus wondrous fair ; Thyself how wondrous then ! " 

I have thus far spoken of miracle only as it has 
appeared a constituent part in the order of the ma- 
terial world. I now ask, Is it reasonable to suppose 
that the system prevailing up to this moment, ac- 
cording to which the progress of the world was 
carried on by a union of general laws and succes- 
sive interpositions, two different modes to our eyes 
through which the same power acts, — is it reason- 
able to suppose that this system would be changed, 
or, till there was evidence of change, that it would 
still prevail ? Is it unreasonable to suppose, or in- 
credible, that the analogy of nature should be main- 
tained ? Was the Divine energy exhausted and 
spent when it had thus just reached the threshold of 
a reasonable and moral creation, all further exertion 
of it forbidden and incredible ? 

The point of the analogy lies here. It is conceded 
that the progress of the material world has been car- 
ried on by the double method of what in common 
language is termed general laws and the direct inter- 
vention of the Creator. At length we reach, in this 



MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 51 

order of progress, a Moral creation on the earth, the 
creation of Man, He has peculiar relations to the 
Creator. The material world could know nothing 
of God. Man is capable of knowing something of 
God, and, so far as moral results are concerned, it 
transcends all other knowledge in importance. And 
nothing is so fitted to impress the limited faculties 
of man with a sense of the reality of the existence 
and present providence of God, as these direct acts 
of intervention, which startle our attention and which 
we are obliged to refer to him. If God then has in- 
terposed miraculously to carry forward the progress 
of the unconscious material world, how much more 
urgent and impressive are the reasons for supposing 
that he would thus interpose to promote the progress 
of the moral world. 

Certainly the sceptic who appeals to science can- 
not object to such a conclusion. Indeed, this form 
of scepticism exhibits the very absurdity of incon- 
sistency. The sceptic appeals to science, — he affects 
rather to be its special devotee, and claims peculiarly 
to respect its laws. As he goes forth into nature 
and penetrates into the secrets of the earth, the geol- 
ogist points out to him the successive formations 
which in the lapse of ages have been deposited. He 
directs his attention to the various species of plants 
and of animal life which belonged to successive 
epochs. He shows him how races of animated life 
gradually became extinct. He points his finger to a 
particular layer, one of the latest perhaps, in which 
some plant or fish or animal first made its appear- 
ance. Here, he says, just here, in the later ages of 



52 MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 



the globe, this species was introduced ; and the scep- 
tic looks on with believing wonder. Is it possible, 
he says, that this species was created after so many 
others had perished ? Do we here see the direct 
work of the creative hand ? Here he does not ques- 
tion the reality of miracle. It is only when he 
comes to the soul's progress that he thinks miracle 
impossible. He has no hesitation about believing 
that God interposed to create a species of plants or 
fishes, in order that the globe may be fitly furnished 
for its inhabitants, but he cannot believe that God 
should interpose to give needed moral light to the 
soul of man in its progress. He hastens to believe 
the geologist when he speaks of miracle, but he can- 
not believe Matthew or John, or Christ. He can 
admit a miracle where it is of least importance, but 
denies its possibility where it is most important. Of 
all men he is most inconsistent. 

Is it impossible that He who has carried on the 
progress of the material world, in part by successive 
miraculous interpositions, suited to the exigencies of 
that progress, should carry on the progress of this 
new moral world, not only by general laws, through 
which he always acts, but also through those sue-, 
cessive interpositions suited to the exigencies of its 
progress, — so suited to give new impulses to the 
race, and to awaken man to a consciousness of the 
Divine Presence ? Shall we not rather say, the mode 
of interference changing to meet the new condition 
of things, the wisdom and power of God shall still 
be revealed as of old, according as he sees that the 
needs of his creatures require ? May we not expect 



MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 53 

that He who created new and successive forms of 
animal life, as the world was prepared for it, should, 
in the progress of this new moral creation, as its exi- 
gencies required, interfere to give it new light and 
life? 

Miracle incredible ! What is the history of the 
globe but the history of miracle ? As we pierce 
through its crust, we dig through layer after layer of 
miracle. As if God had foreseen that we should 
some time have need of proof that he is not shut up 
to one mode of action, and that what we call law is 
but the order of his will, he has committed the evi- 
dence of his perpetual interposition to the keeping 
of the rocks, — turned the solid strata of the globe 
into archives to hold for ever the unimpeachable evi- 
dence of Divine interference. 

In these remarks I have not even presented the 
question as to whether the Christian miracles are or 
are not sustained by sufficient evidence. The argu- 
ment I have offered has nothing directly to do with 
those particular miracles, though indirectly it has a 
most important bearing on them. It proves this, — 
that miraculous interposition has entered as a part 
into the great plan of Providence. It proves that 
miracle in the real and great order of the universe as 
explored by science is nothing anomalous and mon- 
strous. It shows that the order of the world has 
been carried on by the united co-operating agency 
of general laws and miraculous interposition. Thus, 
when we come to the examination of the Christian 
miracles, we find that science has already removed 
and scattered to the winds all objections arising 

5* 



54 MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 



from the idea that miracles as such are incredible. 
It removes from them all antecedent improbability, 
and brings them within the circle of historical evi- 
dence. It leaves them open to be proved, as any 
other facts of history are proved. Nay, more, the 
discoveries of science lead us, whenever a sufficient 
occasion arises, to expect miraculous interposition, 
— to expect it because this has been the order of 
things. It presents the most urgent and impressive 
analogies to awaken this expectation. Throwing 
aside all other considerations, if the progress of the 
material world has been carried on both by general 
laws and miraculous interference suited to it, we 
have reason to expect, when man, a spiritual crea- 
tion, is introduced upon the globe, that his progress 
shall in a similar way come under the influence of 
general laws and miraculous interposition, as Chris- 
tianity declares to have been the case. 

This view shows that there is the strictest har- 
mony between what is revealed in the works of 
God and what is narrated in the word of God. The 
Divine interpositions with which we become ac- 
quainted in the latter are but the carrying out and 
completion of those Divine interpositions of which 
the record is contained in the former ; in one case 
the record committed to the pages of a book and the 
mind of man, and in the other, to the successive 
strata of the earth. There is nothing to my mind 
incredible in the earlier interpositions, and still less 
incredible are the later ones made for the benefit of 
the soul. I find nothing incredible in the statement 
of science, that from time to time God has inter- 



MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION NOT UNNATURAL. 55 



posed to raise to life new orders of being on the 
earth ; nor, in accordance with the statement of re- 
ligion, do I find it any more incredible that God 
should, at suitable times and in fitting ways, in- 
terpose to promote the welfare of his spiritual crea- 
tion. 



SERMON 



IV. 



A VOICE BEHIND THEE. 

AND THINE EARS SHALL HEAR A WORD BEHIND THEE, SAYING, 
THIS IS THE WAT, WALK TE IN IT, WHEN TE TURN TO THE 
RIGHT HAND, AND WHEN TE TURN TO THE LEFT. — Isa. XXX. 21. 

Man, as one of his chief characteristics, has the 
power of self-improvement. He not only can ac- 
cumulate and possess a knowledge of the past, but 
can apply it to future use. The animal is created 
with an instinct which enables it to accomplish all 
that it was intended it should accomplish, — an in- 
stinct which gains nothing from experience, which 
is as unerring at the earliest period of life as at the 
latest, and which directs it to food and shelter, and 
how to guard against its peculiar dangers. With the 
animal, instinct is everything, reason nothing. With 
man it is instinct which is nothing, and reason every- 
thing. What the animal does, impelled by instinct, 
man must learn how to do by reason. Until his rea- 
sonable nature is developed, and he has learned 
something from experience, man is utterly defence- 
less and incapable of even self-preservation. It is 
this reasonable nature which raises man above the 



A VOICE BEHIND THEE. 



57 



brute, and this nature is developed only by learning 
and applying the lessons derived from one's own or 
other's experience. 

The power of improving on the past, of learning 
from past experience, — the importance of gaining 
wisdom from past experience, — this is the lesson of 
the text. 

That which gives value to experience is the fact 
that the laws of God under which we live are per- 
manent and unchanging. We speak of the uni- 
formity of the laws of nature or of God which gov- 
ern the material world. These we know do not 
change. But the laws under which man, as a moral 
being, lives, are precisely as uniform. Not more 
surely must the stone thrown into the air fall to the 
earth, than will the violated conscience avenge itself, 
unused affections decay, habitual indulgence of ap- 
petites and passions imbrute the soul and destroy 
the body. The affections, the passions, the whole 
inner and outer life of man, are as much under law 
as the growth of plants or the motion of stars. 

These laws are uniform. The same jealous and 
envious heart that made a man miserable yesterday, 
will make him so to-morrow. If unkindness and ill- 
temper made the home miserable last year, they will, 
if indulged, continue to make it miserable next year. 
If fidelity to conscience has heretofore given you 
peace of mind, the same fidelity will still bear the 
same fruit. In the spiritual as in the material world, 
the same causes will go on producing the same 
effects. 

It is the great business of man's life, as distinct 



58 



A VOICE BEHIND THEE. 



from the animal, to learn this truth, and to apply it 
to practice, — to convert the experience of the past 
into wisdom for the future. And the great differ- 
ence between men consists in the different degrees 
in which they practically apply this past experience. 
It is as in other things. One man sees daily before 
him the whole expanse of heaven and earth, and 
they suggest nothing to him. Newton but sees an 
apple fall, and to his considerate and prepared mind 
is suggested the great law that holds the universe 
together. So with experience. All the sorrows and 
joys and trials and penalties of life teach some men 
nothing. It seems as if they had not in them the 
power to learn. While others never make the same 
mistake twice, and never fall from a truth when once 
found. "With one, all the years he has lived, with 
their multiplied experiences, are a blank, — for any 
moral purpose he might as well not have lived at all, 
— while to another they are present helps on every 
side, aiding him upward in the way to heaven. 

The laws of life under which we live are uniform. 
Hence it is that in all the results of our course in 
past time we read what must be the result of the 
same courses in future. The past is thus made, by 
the mercy of God, a perpetual prophet, warning, 
guiding, encouraging man in the future. There is 
not a sorrow or joy, — not a possession or bereave- 
ment, — not a virtuous effort or folly or sin, — which 
does not utter its voice of encouragement or warn- 
ing to the soul, and teach it, if it will but hear, a les- 
son of heaven. It is the great superiority of the man 
over the animal, that he can thus learn from the 



A VOICE BEHIND THEE. 



59 



past ; and when he does not do this, he sinks, as far 
as his greater power will let him, to the level of the 
animal. What degradation in one who will not 
learn ! How does he impoverish himself who casts 
away all the years of the past ! who lives now as if 
he had never lived before ! who practises the same 
follies and sins, as if he had never tasted their bitter 
fruits ! who rejects all the years he has lived, and 
throws them away, and walks as blindly and as stu- 
pidly as if there were no light to guide him ! But to 
him who will learn, the past ever speaks. From its 
shades as from the recesses of some sacred temple 
comes a voice to guide him. Through all the laws 
which God has established, and of whose authority 
experience assures us, God himself speaks in no un- 
intelligible language. Continually behind us, in all 
the changing events of life, there is a voice that 
whispers in our ear, not harshly, but kindly, saying, 
This is the way, walk ye in it. Not bitterly like 
an enemy, not sternly like the judge, but tenderly 
and solemnly, as one's best friend, it says, Let not 
past mistakes lead you to despair, but to wisdom 
and improvement. Lament not the past, but gain 
wisdom from it. Hear the voice which directs to a 
better road, and says, This is the way, walk ye in it. 

We ask for warnings as to our duties and dan- 
gers. And we have them every day and hour. Con- 
stantly, in the language of the text, there is a voice 
behind us, warning us of the way in which we 
should go. 

In some cases we acknowledge this. Especially 
we are ready to do it where others are concerned, 



60 



A VOICE BEHIND THEE. 



and wonder that men learn nothing from the bitter 
lessons of experience. A man falls into habits of 
intemperance, his worldly prospects grow dim, his 
body becomes diseased, the hand trembles, the limbs 
totter, the mind wavers on its throne, and all the 
faculties of the soul are degraded. A voice from 
behind this man, we know, — a voice from all these 
bitter experiences, — warns him that the same course 
continued must produce the same effects, till they 
issue in ruin and death. "We wonder at him when 
he shuts his ear and will not hear the voice behind 
him which directs to a better way, and says, This is 
the way, walk ye in it. 

But it is not from gross vices only and their re- 
sults that the voice of warning comes. Let us listen 
for a moment to this voice that issues from the grave 
of past experience. 

It teaches us what we all need to learn, — what 
are our peculiar weaknesses of character, and our 
moral dangers. It is only by looking back on the 
past that we can learn our weak points. Looking 
on ourselves at the present moment, when unassailed 
and untried, we seem to stand strong in those points 
even where a single breath of temptation would at 
once overwhelm us. Thus does many a one, untried, 
while he is utterly weak, seem to himself to stand 
firm and steadfast, — as certain kinds of forest trees, 
while outwardly their trunks soar up strong as if they 
were the pillars of the sky, and are crowned with 
the leafy glories of the spring, are decayed through- 
out in the centre, and wait but the feeblest gust of 
the storm to be overthrown. To know our weak- 



A VOICE BEHIND THEE. 61 

nesses, we must look back to where we have been 
tried and where we have fallen. If temptation has 
led you astray, if you have indulged bad passions or 
have violated conscience, if in any place or scene 
you have found yourself invariably or commonly led 
away by the peculiar temptations of the occasion, a 
voice from behind you that cannot deceive, the voice 
of your own past life, whispers, Here, — however you 
may feign or wish yourself to be, — still here you are 
weak. Beware of this moral exposure, or, if you 
must meet it, meet it with humility and fear and 
prayer. 

It is the voice that comes from past experience 
which gives us full assurance of that truth which, 
above all others, it is most essential for us to under- 
stand and receive, — of the supreme worth of virtue. 
When we look forward to the future, we may doubt 
about doing right, may think duty costs too much. 
But look back on the past, and you have no such 
doubts. Look back on the past, and, no matter what 
you gained by it at the moment, there is not a wrong 
you have done, not a duty you have intentionally 
omitted to do, not one, which you do now remember 
with satisfaction. No matter what the gain or en- 
joyment at the time, there is not one wrong indul- 
gence, not one act of sin, which you can look back 
upon without misgiving and self-reproach. You do 
not boast of that misdeed. You may like the pleas- 
ure or advantage, but would be glad to be rid of the 
guilt. Nor is there a virtuous act or effort or self- 
sacrifice which you ever made, no matter how pain- 
ful, which you do not remember with joy. You may 

6 



62 



A VOICE BEHIND THEE. 



regret mistakes of judgment, but never the purpose 
of duty. There is not one such act for which you 
do not now think the better of yourself, and which 
you do not feel to be one of the true treasures of the 
past. Whatever you may be now, you thank God 
that there was a time when you could make sacrifices 
to duty. You might be willing to have all the rest 
of your past life blotted out, but that never. Thus 
in every temptation does all your past life rise up as 
if from the grave to warn you against sin. 

That voice behind us gives us just notions of the 
actual value of the great objects of worldly pursuit 
and ambition. As we stand in health and strength, 
brightly before us glow the prizes of the world. We 
would be rich, we would be conspicuous, we would 
have the praise of men, we would share in the suc- 
cess of life ; and in our eager struggle for these prizes 
we forget the value of other things. We lose our 
sense of the relative magnitude of objects. But does 
experience teach us to set this inordinate supreme 
value on the advantages of this w T orld ? Rate them 
at as high a value as we will, still they are not all. 
They cannot do everything which we wish done. 
The costly and more luxurious home has not always 
made you either a happier or a better man. Accu- 
mulating gains have not always made you a happier 
or a better man. Social distinctions have not always 
made you a happier man. Who will say that the 
greatest successes he has known, the successes too 
which he has been ready to risk life to win, have 
made him happier in his home, in his heart, in his 
hopes of heaven, in any proportion to the earnestness 



A VOICE BEHIND THEE. 



63 



with which those successes have been sought ? How 
many of the most fortunate will say, that, though they 
shone brightly in the prospect, and hung on the tree 
of life like apples of gold, when they have been able 
to reach and pluck them, they have found them to 
the taste turn to ashes, bitterness, and death ! Look 
again on past experience, and see how few are suc- 
cessful according to their desires, and how desires 
themselves expand illimitably. See the disappointed 
hopes, the broken plans and prospects, toil without 
profit, and anxiety without reward, — poverty in age 
shutting like night over the prosperity of manhood, 
bereavement robbing us of those for whom we la- 
bored, or death coming in and striking down the 
man when his hopes were full-blown and his pros- 
pects the brightest, — and what can tell you more 
impressively that these, however good in their place, 
must not be — must not be, unless we are mad, the 
chief objects of human pursuit ? 

Take another case where our judgment is less par- 
tial. When as a spectator you look back over those 
whom in the past you have known, or have read 
of, whom would you select, on whom does the 
mind instinctively fasten, as the men whose lives 
have been most worth the living? Whose would 
you, if you could, adopt for your own ? Whom 
would you be glad to resemble ? They are not ne- 
cessarily those whom you may admire the most. 
There are those whom you have admired, whom you 
would not resemble for the round world. Not the 
most prosperous or popular or powerful, — certainly 
not for this ; but they are those, humble or high, to 



64 



A VOICE BEHIND THEE. 



whom the heart may pay its moral homage. Or in 
that case which more than any other tests the worth 
of the ends of life, what is it that secures to parents 
the most affectionate memory of children? Parents 
spend a life of toil in order to leave their children 
wealth, to secure them social position or other worldly 
advantages. I do not underrate the worth of these 
things. Had they not been valuable, there would 
not have been so many providential arrangements 
impelling men to seek them. I would only show 
that there is something of infinitely greater value, not 
only to the parent, but to be transmitted to the child. 
What does the child most love to remember? I 
never heard a child express any gratification or pride 
that a parent had been too fond of accumulating 
money, though the child at that moment was enjoy- 
ing that accumulation. But I have heard children, 
though their inheritance had been crippled and cut 
down by it, say, with a glow of satisfaction on their 
features, that a parent had been too kind-hearted, 
too hospitable, too liberal and public-spirited, to be 
a very prosperous man. A parent who leaves noth- 
ing but wealth, or similar social advantages, to his 
children, is apt to be speedily forgotten. However 
it ought to be, parents are not particularly held in 
honor by children because of the worldly advantages 
they leave them. These are received as a matter of 
course. There is comparatively little gratitude for 
this. The heir of an empire hardly thanks him who 
bequeathed it. He more often endeavors before his 
time to thrust him from his throne. But let a child 
be able to say, My father was a just man, he was 



A VOICE BEHIND THEE. 



65 



affectionate in his home, he was tender-hearted, he 
was useful in the community and loved to do good 
in society, he was a helper of the young, the poor, 
the unfortunate, he was a man of principle, liberal, 
upright, devout, — and the child's memory cleaves to 
that parent. He honors him, reveres him, treasures 
his name and his memory, thinks himself blest in 
having had such a parent, and the older he grows, 
instead of forgetting, only reveres and honors and 
remembers him the more. Here is experience and 
affection sitting in judgment on human attainments. 
It shows what is most worth the seeking. It is the 
past warning you what to be and do, — a voice 
behind you, pointing out the right way, and saying, 
This is the way, walk ye in it. 

How differently should we live did we listen to 
the voice of the past, — did we turn the experiences 
of the years we have lived to the profit of to-day. 
Sometimes the tried and tempted heart demands 
greater encouragement to duty, greater warnings 
against moral danger, and feels as if God had left 
it to struggle alone and without light against and 
through the evils of the world. And yet if we con- 
sider, even if a voice spake perpetually from the 
dome of the sky, how could we have more constant 
and more impressive moral lessons than we now 
have? 

In some parts of the country the ancient custom 
still remains, when any one dies, immediately to 
strike the bell for the purpose of calling attention, 
and then to toll it as many strokes as the deceased 
had lived years. I chanced to be alone among the 

6* 



66 



A VOICE BEHIND THEE. 



hills. It was a lovely day of early summer. The 
earth was clothed with a peculiarly rich vegetation 
for even that country region ; the trees were full of 
the notes and flitting wings of the] birds ; below 
a small river ran shining amid the green meadows 
or eddying around the rocks, or plunging, sparkling 
and bright, over the frequent rapids, as if its waters 
had caught something of the life that pervaded na- 
ture, — while above the gray mountain summits rose 
up, mingling with the silent calmness of the skies. 
As far as the eye could reach, but a few scattered 
dwellings could be seen, yet all was full of life and 
peace and silent joy. When suddenly in this uni- 
versal stillness, startling the air with its suddenness, 
the sound of a church-bell came swelling up from 
the distant valley in which the church itself was hid, 
and booming over all the hills. A knell of death in 
the midst of universal life! A knell warning the 
living that they too must die ! A knell speaking to 
all the dwellers round about of that which all in the 
midst of life are so apt to forget! And I knew that 
a thousand hearts there in the solitary homes around 
were awed and beating like my own, — that the hus- 
bandman was pausing behind his plough on the hill- 
side, and that the mother hushed the voice of the 
babe in her home, to listen to that solemn sound, 
which was speaking to us all of a living soul over 
which in our midst the change of death had passed, 
and which even then from the warm affections of 
life was ascending above us into the skies. A knell 
solemn, but not altogether sad, which said, Fair as 
this world is and full of life, there is above a fairer 



A VOICE BEHIND THEE, 



67 



world even than this, and a higher life, to which the 
soul belongs. Blessed sound, I thought, which not 
only warns us of death, but can also thus awaken 
us from our dreams of earth to the higher thoughts 
and hopes of heaven ! Happy were we, if such a 
voice, warning us of death and heaven, could come 
to us every hour! And yet it was an ungrateful 
thought ; for if I reflected, I could not but remember 
that, in the merciful providence of God, warnings 
more solemn than this death-knell were sounding 
into our ears with every moment, did we but listen. 
Not an hour passes in which we are not warned, by 
some of the thousand modes in which God com- 
municates his will to man, of the necessity of good- 
ness, the sure penalties of sin, the certainty of death. 
All the years we have lived, in their changes, the 
renewal of spring, the fallen leaves of autumn, warn 
us of a change and a mortality that belongs to us not 
less than to them. The hymns and prayers of child- 
hood are voices behind us speaking to our manhood. 
The hoary head of the sinner and the death-beds of 
the good warn us. The Bible, though it lie un- 
opened on our table, every time we look at it from 
its closed lids warns us of righteousness, temper- 
ance, and judgment to come. The open doors of 
churches, and Sabbath bells, and funeral hymns, and 
chambers of grief, have warned and still warn us. 
Every law of God we have broken or obeyed, — 
every sin of which we have repented, in the peace 
that has followed repentance, and every sin of 
which we have not repented, in its upbraidings, — 
they are all as voices behind us with all the authority 



68 



A VOICE BEHIND THEE. 



of experience, whispering in our ears, Behold the 
way of God, — this is the way, walk ye in it. 

In how many nameless, numberless forms is God, 
through the experience of all the past, warning us of 
our highest good, — of duty and the great end of life ! 
What then are we who live as if there were no voice 
behind us warning us of the way in which we should 
go ? It is the very distinction of man's reasonable 
nature, that he can learn of the past. What shall 
we say of him who lives as if he had no past to 
remember or improve upon, — with whom to-day is 
no better than yesterday, — who repeats day after 
day, and year after year, the same wearisome follies, 
goes round in the same circle of worldliness, yields 
to the same passions, commits the same sins, and 
takes not one step forward in the road of virtue 
and piety and God ? Miserable man ! What loss 
like his whose whole life has been waste, who has 
travelled on through the journey of years, has had 
pleasures, and toiled amidst anxieties, and been 
smitten with griefs, and suffered the penalties of his 
sins, and yet learned nothing of the great lesson to 
be learned from them ! 

No one can take a view of his past life without 
awe and humility. The great object for which all 
the discipline of the past has been arranged by 
Providence, has been to train up the soul for virtue 
and heaven. And all that we have brought out of 
the past which is permanent, is what is contained in 
the soul. All else that we have done or cherished 
must soon be left behind. And to which of us is it 
not a startling thought, that we have lived so many 



A VOICE BEHIND THEE. 



69 



years, passed through so many changes, been schooled 
in the discipline of so many trials, and come out of 
them all no wiser or better than we are ! 

And this view of the past becomes doubly solemn 
when we remember that it cannot be changed. A 
little while ago, and we might have made it what we 
pleased. It is now too late ! All remains, and must 
remain, as it is. Virtues and sins, self-sacrifices and 
self-indulgences, the wrong we have done to others 
and the wrong in our hearts, — all remains, and must 
remain, written down and sealed up for eternity. 
The days that are gone have gone on " into the rec- 
ord of Heaven, into the memory of God." Fixed 
and irrevocable, the past is no longer the subject of 
human choice, but of Divine judgment ! All that it 
can now do for us, is to direct us more wisely in 
time to come. 

What the interior shades of the future, as we 
move on from arch to arch, may reveal, we know 
not. But if we live, the future is now in our power, 
to make it, so far as its great moral ends are con- 
cerned, very much what we will. What shall it be ? 
We shall, as a matter of fact, whether consciously or 
unconsciously, choose. What then shall it be ? Sup- 
pose it were revealed to you that you should live a 
certain number of years ; but that at the end you 
should be no better ■ — not any worse, only no better 
— than at the beginning, no good qualities strength- 
ened, no bad ones changed for the better ; — if this 
doom were pronounced over you, who would not 
shrink from a continuance of life which only accu- 
mulated unmet responsibilities, — who would dare 



70 



A VOICE BEHIND THEE. 



encounter such a doom ? We regard death as a sol- 
emn and fearful event, and it is. But life is still 
more serious. If it be a serious thing to die, it is 
still more serious to live on in such a way that every 
day adds to our unworthiness. 

Unless our lives are absolutely negative and indif- 
ferent, which is impossible, we are in the successive 
days to come to do much either of evil or good. And 
which, is to depend on our prevailing purposes and 
efforts each day. You are to do much for the hap- 
piness or unhappiness of homes, of parents, children, 
brothers, sisters, and friends. Each day has its ap- 
propriate duties, and as they arrive you will choose 
to perform them, or you will choose to be unfaithful 
to them. On the road before you stand waiting for 
you to come up the ignorant, the poor, the miserable, 
who as you come up to them will be helped by you, or 
be passed by on the other side. In each case, one you 
will do, and the other you will not do. There are good 
customs, institutions, and enterprises which you are 
to aid, or to neglect to aid. You will choose one 
course, and the opposite course you will not choose. 
There will be a thousand opportunities for kind and 
friendly offices, opportunities for adding to the amount 
of human happiness ; in each case there is a selfish 
course, and a friendly, generous course, and you will 
choose one and reject the other. During every day of 
coming life God will visit you and yours with bless- 
ings, and you will receive them with thankful and 
obedient hearts, or you will receive them thanklessly. 
As you go on, you will think of your course as Chris- 
tian men and women, or you will neglect to do it. 



A VOICE BEHIND THEE. 



71 



Now it is a matter of choice. Every step of the way 
will involve a moral choice, — either high or low, — 
worthy or unworthy. But once passed, it stands ! 
Choice ceases, and the act remains. What now is 
yours passes out of your hands under the eternal law 
of a righteous retribution. 

Our great concern is with the future. Let it not 
be such that at life's end you shall say, I had better 
not have lived, than to live thus. Let not this be 
the epitaph which must be written on your grave. 
Fill up each day with good deeds and the ounces of 
a kind heart. Do something to make the wretched 
happier and the erring better. See to it that the ad- 
vantages you possess are the source of good to those 
around you. Pay to God the homage of just, liber- 
al, and humane lives. Pay to God the homage of a 
filial and obedient heart. Let the brevity and uncer- 
tainty of life and its momentous issues give solem- 
nity to your purposes. Let the past warn and coun- 
sel you. Hear and obey that voice which, issuing 
from the portals of the past, warns you that the 
paths of virtue are the paths of peace, and, pointing 
upward, whispers behind you, like a messenger from 
God, This is the way, walk ye in it, 



SEEM ON V. 



STAND THY LOT. 

THOU SHALT REST, AND STAND IN THT LOT AT THE END OF THE 

dats. — Daniel xiL 13. 

The phraseology of the text has reference to the 
Jewish custom of deciding doubtful matters by lot. 
Thus, when the chosen people entered Canaan, it 
was by lot that the Promised Land was divided be- 
tween the tribes. So, in some important offices, the 
different duties were assigned to different persons by 
lot; and this method of assigning to individuals 
their respective places was supposed to have the 
sanction of religion. Each man entered on the 
duties allotted to him with the feeling that they were 
allotted by Providence. He stood in his lot as in a 
place providentially appointed for him in which to 
serve God. In the text, the Prophet u should stand 
in his lot, and rest." The words may have a uni- 
versal application. The infinite variety of human 
duties cannot all be discharged by the same person. 
For different duties there must be different men. 
Thus it is, in the order of Providence, that to differ- 
ent men different lots are assigned, not necessarily 



STAND IN THY LOT. 



73 



better or worse one than another, but different. And 
in his own lot, and not in another man's, must each 
one accomplish the true purposes of his existence. 
He must not dream of some impossible condition, 
but with a manly heart be content to labor in his 
appointed lot, — content to find in that, so long as it 
is his, his usefulness, his happiness, and his virtue. 
Do not crave what is another's and not yours, but 
stand in your own lot, be grateful for its privileges, 
and faithful to its obligations. 

The lesson has not lost its significance for our 
restless, impatient, grasping age. It points to a view 
of life and duty which it greatly concerns us to con- 
sider. There are two principal things for which life 
is worth living, — -personal growth in goodness, and 
social usefulness. For both these things there is a 
constant tendency to look beyond the means and 
opportunities furnished in our appointed walk in life. 
We rely for goodness and usefulness on opportuni- 
ties which are rare and exceptional, but neglect as 
valueless those which come within our actual lot. 

Thus in theology we hear of common grace and 
special grace, of ordinary and extraordinary means 
of grace ; and yet while it is on the ordinary means 
of grace that the moral life of man mainly depends, 
they are neglected and forgotten in the anxiety for 
those that are extraordinary. And certainly the ten- 
dency to overvalue what is unusual is quite natural. 
That which is extraordinary, though comparatively 
of inferior moment, strikes the imagination, and for 
the time makes a great place for itself in the mind. 
A miracle preserves the life of one man, and the 



74 



STAND IN THY LOT. 



world turns in wonder and reverence to view it, and 
acknowledges the hand of God ; and it is right and 
well. 'Yet at the same moment the ordinary provi- 
dence of God, moving calmly as the stars, lights up 
the heavens, gives fertility to the earth, and spreads 
the table at which the human race sits down, and 
by which it lives ; and it is not well for us to forget 
that this ordinary providence of God is a more stu- 
pendous manifestation of his glory and goodness 
than any single miracle can possibly be. A whole 
country collects to see an illuminated city, and yet 
the glare of the torchlight which blinds us to the 
stars hides and makes us forget the more wondrous 
illumination of the heavens. The throng traverses 
with unsated gaze the illuminated street, because the 
spectacle is rare. As it withdraws into the open 
country, and morning breaks in spleifcdor above the 
seas, its beams kindling from cloud to cloud till 
earth and sky are flooded with light, the weary mul- 
titude is scarcely conscious of standing under an il- 
luminated universe. This spectacle for the angels is 
unheeded because It is common. 

Just so in morals and religion. Men would do 
good, and think that the means must lie outside the 
common course of life. The need of a more relig- 
ious spirit is felt, and it is sought from extraordinary 
and ever-varying means of excitement. And cer- 
tainly we will not undervalue these means. Through 
them deep invasions and permanent conquests have 
been made in the realms of ignorance and sin ; but 
they mark the tendency to rely on the novel and the 
extraordinary. We see the same tendency in the 



STAND IN THY LOT. 



75 



low estimate which men place on the moral oppor- 
tunities of that sphere of life in which their daily 
lot is cast. The merchant says, " I have peculiar 
temptations : it is very difficult for me to be a Chris- 
tian " ; and he thinks if he is to become one, it must 
be in some changed condition of life. The sailor 
says, " I have peculiar temptations : it is very hard 
for one in my place to be a Christian." And 
every man thinks that his lot is peculiarly exposed 
and difficult and destitute of moral opportunity. 
For the attainment of the Christian character, and 
the practice of Christian usefulness, he thinks he 
must look beyond his common sphere of labor and 
duty to exceptional and extraordinary opportunities. 
And yet the daily lesson of Providence is to rely on 
what is common, — made common, indeed, because 
the most valuable. Thus Almighty God does not 
rely for lighting the world on the momentary glare 
of an occasional meteor, but on the perpetual and 
equal illumination of the sun. And man, while 
thankful for every extraordinary aid, must look for 
his goodness and usefulness chiefly to his use of the 
common means and opportunities which belong to 
his special lot. 

The point which I would urge on your reflections 
is, the value of the opportunities for attaining the 
two great ends of life — Christian growth and Chris- 
tian usefulness — furnished in the ordinary round of 
each one's daily cares and duties. There is infinite 
moral opportunity in every lot, there is a general 
moral equality in the different lots of mankind. 
Through these considerations I would enforce the 



76 



STAND IN THY LOT. 



duty of meeting heartily, cheerfully, and faithfully 
the requirements of your lot, so long as it is yours. 
" Stand in your lot " ; while it is yours, be content 
with it. Set a just value on its opportunities for 
improvement and usefulness. Look not chiefly to 
extraordinary means, but to those arising in your 
daily walk, out of the daily duties of your calling, 
both for doing good and being good. 

A man is dissatisfied with his religious state. He 
desires more religious life. Where shall he look for 
it ? — I answer, from Christian fidelity in the circle 
of his daily cares and duties. A Christian principle 
is established in the soul by being obeyed in prac- 
tice, and his place of obedience is of course where 
his duties and temptations lie. He may derive from 
other sources occasional impulse and instruction, but 
the obedience must be along the daily path of life. 
The husbandman goes abroad sometimes to gain in- 
formation, he tries experiments ; but he depends for 
his harvest on his steady labor. 

And where there is fidelity, so far as they are con- 
cerned with whom we are likely to compare ourselves 
in a moral point of view, there is great equality 
among the various lots of life. There is not a call- 
ing which does not supply incipient opportunities for 
the attainment of Christian excellences. These op- 
portunities are not to be found solely nor chiefly in 
the church, in the religious meeting, nor on religious 
occasions. In them one may be quickened or in- 
structed ; but that practical application of religious 
truths which alone establishes them in the heart 
must be made in the midst of the daily cares of life. 



STAND IN THY LOT. 



77 



There is not a man, whatever his calling, who be- 
fore to-morrow night will not be placed where he 
must obey or disobey every Christian principle. 
His sense of justice and disinterestedness, his truth- 
fulness and. kindness, his self-control and patience, 
his faith in goodness, his reverence and fidelity to 
God, — not one of us but will, before to-morrow's 
sun sets, have a trial of all these qualities. And 
it is not by previous feeling and speculation, not 
through day-dreams of what we might do on ex- 
traordinary occasions, but by our fidelity in the 
actual trials of the common life, that these excel- 
lences will grow. 'And because all places furnish 
these trials and opportunities, there is moral equality 
among those lots which socially are most unequal, — 
so that the lowliest cabin among the hills is as near 
to heaven as are the august palaces which overlook 
the capitals of empires. * 

So with regard to usefulness. Men are apt to 
think that usefulness requires extraordinary oppor- 
tunities, — conspicuous exertions, — something pe- 
culiar, — -some great thing, — something aside from 
and beyond the common sphere of life. We will not 
undervalue these more extraordinary means of use- 
fulness. But still the progress of the world in good 
does not depend chiefly on these conspicuous and 
exceptional efforts. They are but bubbles that show 
the direction in which the common private Chris- 
tian fidelity and thought and sympathy and effort 
are setting. Without this private fidelity in private 
spheres, the public enterprise and all engaged in it 

would be but a feather in a tempest. 

7# 



78 



STAND IN THY LOT. 



The great instrument by which a moral influence 
is exerted is personal character. He that communi- 
cates knowledge may do it by words, by writing, by 
loud and conspicuous means. But he who would 
make men good must do it by being good himself. 
And leaving out some peculiar cases, too few to be 
regarded, it is surprising what equality there is 
among men in their power of doing good. A man's 
character has influence only so far as it is under- 
stood, and it can be understood and felt only by 
the little world in which he lives. Now, every man's 
world, that in which he lives, is of very much the 
same size with that of every other man. It is com- 
posed of the ten or twenty or hundred individuals 
or families with whom he is brought into close con- 
nection in the relations of business or friendship. 
This constitutes his world. In the crowded city it 
will rarely be large, in the retirement of the country 
it will hardly be smaller. The moral influence which 
a man exerts on the world at large depends on the 
moral influence he exerts on this circle with which 
he is thus connected. It is so with the greatest 
man. It seems, at first, as if he stamped himself 
on the age. But it is rarely so. By sympathy he 
communicates his character, his views of duty, his 
moral feelings and aims, to a few friends, and they, 
in turn, each to his own little circle ; and thus it 
spreads in ever-enlarging circles, — lamp kindled 
from lamp, the light is finally spread over the earth. 
And it scarcely matters where the influence begins. 
Wesley's influence, rising at first from the common 
people, is as great now as that of the great con- 



STAND IN THY LOT. 



79 



queror, descending down through princes and mar- 
shals and statesmen. With the humblest man it 
is the same. There is a circle in which there are 
young persons to whom his character is a standard 
to which they appeal, and older persons too, all 
whose views of life and duty are influenced by him. 
And through them his influence extends to others. 
This is the way in which the world is morally im- 
proved. It seems as if Almighty God had deter- 
mined that the moral good of the world should 
depend on the fidelity of individuals, in the little 
spheres in which they are placed, in order that for 
this great work men should have almost equal 
opportunities. 

A man must not look, for his means of doing good 
to others, to making a few addresses on this or that 
great reform, — to entering great organizations, — to- 
great, conspicuous, and exceptional acts, — nor to 
occasional acts of generosity. These are indeed 
necessary in their place, but the great good w T hich 
he may wish to do must be done by his habitual 
life spent amidst its common cares. A man pro- 
motes by word and act some great moral enterprise, 
and yet, after all, to how little will it amount. But 
behold him in his daily walk. Here, every day, he 
comes in contact, in his business, with various per- 
sons, in a way which shows the real principles on 
which he acts, — children, young persons, or those 
of mature years, like himself. He may say nothing, 
but it is seen that he will not do a questionable act 
for the sake of personal gain. He will practise on 
no man's ignorance. He will take no advantage of 



80 



STAND IN THY LOT. 



men's necessities. Where it is to his loss, he is seen 
to be as strictly just and true and faithful as when 
it is for his gain. In all his dealings he is governed 
by Christian principle. Perhaps he does not at all 
attempt directly to make others better : he is only a 
good man himself. And yet, were he to devote 
himself to some great and extraordinary moral or 
religious enterprise, he probably would not do so 
much to raise the moral condition of man as he 
will by this practice of Christian principle amidst 
those common duties and temptations where the 
characters of men are tried. The little child sees 
his course, and involuntarily respects it, and it be- 
comes a standard by which he will judge of the 
propriety of actions. The young man, whose prin- 
ciples were not bad, but unsettled, takes courage for 
the right. Those that do business with him, if for 
nothing else except that he may respect them, will 
more or less adopt his principles. Unjust and hard 
and discreditable customs are shamed away, and grow 
obsolete. Thus, often, the silent lives of individuals 
in time raise the character of a whole community. 

Trace the influence of a really good man,, first in 
his family, then among his friends, then spreading 
on every side and descending from one generation 
to another, and who shall declare the sum of it? 
It is to this that we are to look chiefly for the 
world's regeneration. The progress of the world 
in good is dependent chiefly, not on great public 
efforts, but on this individual fidelity in the common 
walk of life. 

Let no one say that he has no opportunities or 



STAND IN THY LOT. 



83 



means of usefulness. He may not be able to give 
money, or by his eloquence sway the feelings and 
passions of crowds, or control great organizations, 
and yet he has in his reach those means which God 
has made to be the greatest with which he intrusts 
the children of men. 

If one thinks that the great object of life is to 
gratify ambition, vanity, the love of power, he may 
naturally pine for exalted and conspicuous spheres 
of action. But if he really believe, as we all profess 
to believe, that the only great objects for which life is 
worth living are the establishing of one's own soul in 
Christian excellence, and the doing of good to man, 
he will not greatly trouble himself about the sphere 
of duty in which his lot is cast. For these objects, 
the most conspicuous sphere is not always the most 
favorable. For the growth of good in ourselves, 
and for the promotion of moral good in others, ob- 
scurity and shade are sometimes the most propi- 
tious. It is in obscure caverns and hidden clefts and 
dark recesses of the earth that the diamond slowly 
kindles its spark of fire. 

"Stand in your lot"; recognize that lot which 
in the way of duty has come to be yours, as one 
providentially appointed, and be content to stand 
and labor there. The lesson deserves to be con- 
sidered not more perhaps by man than by woman. 
She too often pines for a more favorable sphere in 
which mind and soul may be under more propitious 
influences, and where she may find greater oppor- 
tunities and aids for self-improvement. In the 
midst of wearing details, it is said, day after day 



82 



STAND IN THY LOT. 



goes by without fruit, mind and heart are squan- 
dered, time runs to waste, and nothing is done for 
one's self or for others. Petty cares, petty trials, eat 
out the life and choke the soul. 

But is it not the same mistake, the undervaluing 
of the ordinary lot, the overvaluing of that which is 
extraordinary ? Here I do not ask whether society 
might not be organized on a better model. Doubt- 
less it might be, and ought to be. But at the 
present time, as a matter of fact, woman as well as 
man finds herself in a certain position. It may not, 
in all respects, be what it ought to be ; but no one will 
deny that the sphere which she occupies is an im- 
portant one. She has long occupied it, and for the 
present she will doubtless continue to occupy it ; and 
while she does so, it is of vital moment to her that 
she should estimate its opportunities and duties 
aright. To her the lesson comes, " Stand \n your 
lot," — trust in Providence, and " stand in your lot" ; 
be satisfied, while there, to labor in it; serve God 
by fidelity in its duties ; believe that, while it is your 
lot, there are your best opportunities both for good- 
ness and usefulness. Look not abroad for extraor- 
dinary opportunities : the best, God has also made 
the most common. Just as with men, — if she 
would be good or do good, she will most certainly 
attain her end by fidelity in the common walk of 
life. Nay, it is by fidelity in the common duties 
that she best opens the way to the larger and higher 
ones for which she pines. 

She thinks that there is some sphere more pro- 
pitious to the growth of mind and heart. But is 



STAND IN THY LOT. 



83 



it so? Is there any more favorable discipline for 
personal improvement in the highest sense, than 
that furnished in the common routine of daily 
duties ? The duties and responsibilities of the hum- 
blest home, ranging from the most trifling cares to 
the nurture of the souls of children, — are they not 
sufficient to task every faculty ? When are fore- 
thought and self-control called forth, if not here ? 
When are self-denying affections more needed ? Or 
can there be motive for virtue wanting to those 
whose virtues become so speedily the life of their 
offspring? Or does Religion ever speak in more 
tender and winning tones, than when from among 
the joys and hopes of home she calls on you for 
gratitude to Him who guards and blesses it and 
you ? Has virtue any greater helps than are to be 
found in the mental sympathy and aid and prayers 
of those most dear to you ? Or with what more 
touching words can piety raise the thoughts to 
heaven, than with those that come from the death- 
beds of children, when with the last fond smile, the 
last lingering look, they seem to say, " I go before 
thee, but cannot, O mother, forget thee, or cease 
to watch and wait for thy coming!" She who 
connot amid such scenes, such duties, such respon- 
sibilities, find motive and aids for personal improve- 
ment, where will she be likely to find them? 

Or you would be useful to others, and feel your- 
self cramped and .hindered and fettered by daily 
cares. May not these cares be the very avenues 
to the highest usefulness ? Certain it is that much 
depends on them, — much more than the supply of 



84 



STAND IN THY LOT. 



the mere bodily wants of those that meet around the 
same table. These daily cares, these unnoticed and 
obscure duties and labors, — if nothing else, this 
much depends on them : fidelity and a right spirit 
here make the comfort and happiness of home, and 
determine nearly all its influences. They make all 
the difference between a home without peace, — to 
which its members return without joy, and which 
they leave without regret, where they merely live, 
where the joy of life is sought in vain, — and that 
home which its members leave with regret, and to 
which they return from the storms of the world, as 
to a haven of peace, — a home which is the centre 
of affection and happiness and hope. 

And what a difference is this! A happy and 
Christian home! How much of all that is good 
in life is bound up in these words. Out of the 
happy and Christian home rises the light of the 
world. What is it that gives cheerfulness to the 
mighty toil by which the business of the world is 
carried on, — that toil which builds cities and culti- 
vates the fields and explores the seas ? What but 
this, — that each one of this toiling multitude is la- 
boring for a home, where affectionate hands prepare 
for his coming, and eyes full of love shall greet his 
return ? Patriots have encountered every peril, — 
on the bloody deck, in midnight camps, in besieged 
cities, in the deadly front of battle, — because they 
knew that the prayers of wives and children fol- 
lowed them, and the memory of happy homes threat- 
ened by unholy feet wa,s in their hearts. Great men, 
the heroes of great contests, reformers and saints 



STAND IN THY LOT. 



85 



that have blest the world, have brought back their 
crowns of honor, and fitly laid them at the feet of 
mothers who had trained them to high thought and 
heroic enterprise. Dying men in their prayers have 
given God thanks for those who taught their infant 
lips to pray. And the youth, amidst strangers, 
weak within, tempted without, is held back from' 
ruin by the thought of the bitter tears, the breaking 
hearts, which his vices would bring to that never-for- 
gotten home of childhood. 

A happy, affectionate Christian home ! From its 
blessed retreat go forth with cheerful feet useful 
labor and philanthropic enterprise ; go forth the 
humanizing influences that save men from the tyr- 
anny of selfish and savage passions ; go forth the 
motives of virtue that take hold of all that is most 
generous and self-forgetting in man ; go forth the 
guardian memories which protect the youth, and 
rest like a halo around old age ; go forth the spirit, 
that, reappearing in other spheres in humble places, 
and in high, uttered in words made manifest in 
deeds, becomes the virtue and hope of the world. 

Such is the difference between the happy and un- 
happy home, that I believe, if by some terrible sor- 
cery these homes that dot the earth, these centres of 
affection, these green islets of peace and shade and 
calm in the great desert of life, were broken up, or 
if the happiness in them were extinguished, scarcely 
a generation would pass away before the most civil- 
ized state would sink into barbarism. Men would 
cease to labor, or labor only for means to indulge the 
appetites and passions ; the charities of life would 

8 



86 



STAND IX THY LOT. 



no longer soften the intercourse of the world ; disin- 
terestedness and virtue, robbed of many of their pur- 
est motives, would disappear; Religion, whose holiest 
altar of worship and most impressive instructions 
are at the domestic hearth, would mourn her sceptre 
broken and her power departed. Children born into 
a homeless world, orphaned of the holiest influences, 
would grow up without natural affection, and die 
without hope. 

It is hard for us to appreciate the importance of 
happy and Christian homes. We see the current of 
virtuous motive, and disinterested enterprise, which 
is the life of the social world, and forget its source. 
As with the ancient Egyptians, though no rains fell 
during the whole year on their thirsting plains, yet 
every year the Nile rose and swelled and overflowed 
its banks and covered them with fertility, and the 
multitude looked, and, forgetting the Source of all 
this, worshipped the rich and abounding river as a 
god. Yet for their swelling river and fruitful shores 
they were indebted to sources far distant and to them 
unknown. Far away under an equatorial sky, across 
unknown tribes, amid unexplored mountains, the 
clouds gathered, the rains fell, the fountains gushed 
out of the earth's heart, and the rills trickled in silver 
threads down the sides of the mountains and collected 
in streams, till, reuniting, they formed the river that 
washed the base of the Pyramid, and on whose banks 
mighty cities and dynasties* rose and flourished. Dry 
up the mountain showers, dry up those distant, unno- 
ticed fountains, and the valley of Egypt were a des- 
ert. Yet the negro panting under a tropic sun, as he 
sat down beneath a palm that overhung one of those 



STAND IN THY LOT. 87 

mountain springs, the fainting caravan that encamped 
by the side of the narrow stream, dreamed not that 
here were the sources of the harvests of Egypt, and 
were they to disappear millions must famish for bread. 
Just so", out of unnoticed homes flows nearly all the 
good that blesses the world. Blot out the home, those 
fountains of gentle affections, those springs whence 
flow so many streams of moral influence and relig- 
ious faith ; and the sands of the desert w ould be but 
a feeble type of the moral waste that would envelope 
the world. 

Yet the existence of these happy Christian homes 

— their very existence — depends mainly on woman, 

— on her fidelity to the common duties of home, on 
the spirit with which she meets its daily cares and 
bears its daily trials, on affections that make sunshine 
in a shady place, on her faith and piety breathed in- 
sensibly into those around her. Is not this a useful- 
ness to which one may worthily devote a life ? 

Say not then, those whose lot is cast in this sphere, 
that life runs to waste amidst petty cares, that mind 
and heart are squandered on trifling duties : " Stand 
in thy lot," and be content to stand in it. Recognize 
its dignity. Look at the result of thy fidelity in it. 
See it as it is. See how much the highest good of 
those dearest to thee depends on these very things. 
See how these little things of the home are the great 
things of life. See how a pure and Christian and 
affectionate purpose dignifies the lowliest acts and 
cares, how thy fidelity in these common duties 
becomes the source and the primal fountain of the 
best part of the holiest influences that bless the world. 
You need not seek extraordinary means and oppor- 



88 STAND IN THY LOT. 

tunities of influence. Where could you, though you 
sought them over the world, find greater than those 
which come to you in this common walk of life ? 
The best and highest are already in your hands. 
She who does her part in making one Christian and 
happy home, has done her part in a work which, were 
all to do it, would make earth an Eden. Nor this 
alone. In making the home happy, she reaches out 
over the whole domain of life. The influence ex- 
erted at the centre spreads out like rays of light to 
the circumference. Almost without a figure, through 
the natural influence of such homes woman may 
build up the prosperity of cities, and the virtues of 
citizens ; her voice speaks through the lips of patriots 
and reformers ; her heart gives its life-pulse to the 
hearts of martyrs and saints. 

Let us be persuaded, then, that the common and 
daily walk of life furnishes the best opportunities and 
means for the growth of goodness in the individual 
heart, and for the promotion of good among others. 
He who seeks them, need not go far to seek them. 
They are near him, even at the door. Extraordinary 
means can be profitable only for extraordinary occa- 
sions. Be governed by Christian principle in the per- 
formance of your daily duties, at home and abroad, 
be faithful to these, and though you never step be- 
yond the sphere in which your lot is cast, your souls 
shall daily grow in goodness and your life be a per- 
ennial fountain of usefulness. 

Be content to stand in your lot. Whatever it 
may be, there is work in it enough for one to perform. 
It is your work, and if done in a Christian spirit 
there is ample opportunity to build up faith and 



STAND IN THY LOT. 



89 



piety in your own soul, and to bless your fellow-men. 
If you aspire to what you think a better lot, the way 
to reach it is by being faithful where you are. But 
be sure, that no lot to which duty calls you can in its 
essential nature be excluded from the highest good. 
A noble spirit ennobles the humblest condition, and 
a mean spirit alone makes the lot mean. A wonder- 
ful fact ! It seems as if it had been to disabuse the 
world, and to exorcise it of its false views of human 
conditions, that the Saviour of man was born in a 
manger ; that his ministry was in the obscure land 
of Judaea ; that by the way-side, along the lake-shore, 
among humble men, he subjected himself to poverty ; 
that he washed his disciples' feet ; that he died on 
a cross; and in all places lost not his own divinity, 
but made the event divine. 

Whatever then your lot may be, so that it come to 
you in the simple way of duty, do not contemn it, 
but honor it, and by your fidelity in it make it honor- 
able. All real duties come in the order of a provi- 
dential appointment, and take their character, not 
from the measurements of human vanity, but from 
God who appoints them. He can be worshipped as 
devoutly in the humble way-side church, as in the 
great cathedral; and so also he may be served as 
truly in the obcurest duty as in that whose perform- 
ance wins the plaudits of the world. Leave to others 
to labor in their lot, and for yourself be satisfied to 
stand in your own ; fulfilling its duties ; enlarging it 
by your fidelity ; contented to stand there while it 
is your lot ; there to serve God, and to be useful 
among men. 

8 * 



SERMON VI. 



THE TRANSFIGURATION. 

AND AS HE PRAYED, THE FASHION OF HIS COUNTENANCE WAS AL- 
TERED, AND HIS RAIMENT WAS WHITE AND GLISTERING. AND 
BEHOLD THERE TALKED WITH HIM TWO MEN, WHICH WERE 
MOSES AND ELIAS, WHO APPEARED IN GLORY, AND SPAKE OP 
HIS DECEASE WHICH HE SHOULD ACCOMPLISH AT JERUSALEM. — 

Luke ix. 29-31. 

The remarkable event of the Transfiguration, here 
referred to, is recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, 
and again particular mention is made of it by Peter 
in his First Epistle. It was the Saviour's custom to 
teach great principles through individual cases ; and 
in harmony with this, the Transfiguration appears to 
have had a double purpose, — one particular, belong- 
ing to the time, the other more general and uni- 
versal. We may consider separately these two as- 
pects of the event. 

The immediate purpose of the Transfiguration, as 
Ave may gather from the narrative, was twofold. 

1. The disciples were Jews, and, like all the Jews, 
while they expected the Messiah to reign over the 
world, they expected him to do it as a Jew, in sub- 
ordination to the law of Moses. They did not ex- 



THE TRANSFIGURATION. 



91 



pect larger and brighter revelations of truth, in which 
Judaism should grow pale and fade ; but only that 
Judaism itself should be invigorated and made tri- 
umphant. The extreme difficulty of overcoming this 
mistaken, narrow, and local idea is seen in the Epis- 
tles of Paul, of which so large a part is devoted to 
proving that Christianity is not subordinate to Juda- 
ism, but an infinite advance upon it ; as the full clay 
is an advance on the morning twilight. This mis- 
conception, had it been universal, would have made 
Christians a mere sect of the Jews. It would have 
been fatal to the religion at its very outset. Its fun- 
damental idea was, that it .was a religion for all 
mankind. But simply to have taught the disciples 
this truth, so outside the range of their common 
thoughts, in general phrases, would probably have 
availed little. It was therefore taught through a 
particular, but most intelligible and impressive event. 
The Apostles beheld the Saviour transfigured and 
in familiar converse with Moses and Elias, one the 
giver of the law, and the other the chief of the 
prophets ; while from the cloud of glory which over- 
shadowed them came the voice, " This is my well- 
beloved Son, hear ye him." It was a most impres- 
sive attestation to the religious authority of Christ. 
Christ is henceforth to be obeyed as the great teach- 
er. Moses and Elias had prepared the way for his 
coming ; they had shone as stars, but here was the 
rising of the sun. We do not appreciate the impor- 
tance and influence of the event, because this, and 
others like it, accomplished the liberation of Chris- 
tianity from Judaism. To understand it, we must 



92 



THE TRANSFIGURATION. 



understand what the fate of Christian truth and of 
the Christian world would have been, had the first 
teachers of the religion not been emancipated from 
their Jewish prejudices. Thus far the transfigura- 
tion was intended to impress the Apostles with a 
just idea of the Saviour's place and dignity. This 
we learn from the declaration of Peter in his Epistle. 

2. The narrative suggests a second purpose which 
had reference to the Saviour himself. "Without at- 
tempting to explain why or wherefore, we know that 
the Saviour from the beginning of his ministry felt 
the need of divine succor. He prayed, not only for 
others, but for himself. He spent whole nights in 
solitary prayer. He strengthened himself for the 
hour of his death by prayer. 

For what may we suppose that he prayed ? I do 
not forget that on such subjects we speculate but 
blindly. But in the lonely and dolorous way from 
the baptism to the cross, it seems as if nothing could 
have been more needed than a constant assurance 
that he was fulfilling the work of God. We speak 
of miracles as if then* sole purpose was to convince 
us. They may have been as essential to himself as 
a present testimony of God's approval. We forget 
his moral isolation, and how the whole world was 
against him. Yet we read of his sadness and de- 
spondency : he was a man of sorrows and acquaint- 
ed with grief. At one time he prayed, My God ! 
my God ! why hast thou forsaken me ? May not the 
same feelinar have darkened his soul at other horns ? 
May not these visible manifestations have been need- 
ful to himself? At any rate, they were granted in 



THE TRANSFIGURATION. 



93 



such a way as to become a perpetual assurance that 
in this great ministry he was under no personal illu- 
sion. A voice at his baptism proclaimed him the 
chosen and appointed one who was to come. At 
the close of the fasting and temptation of the wilder- 
ness, when his ministry began, came a heavenly at- 
testation. Miracles followed his words. Angels 
strengthened him in Gethsemane. Thus, from the 
beginning of his mission, he was attended by those 
visible displays of the Divine presence, which, what- 
ever else they did, gave assurance to himself that he 
was a teacher from God. At this time, it is said 
that he talked with Moses and Elias of his decease 
which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. Consider 
how much is implied in this. His death was not to 
come unexpectedly. Step by step, and day by day, 
he moved on into the deepening shadow and to that 
sacrifice which was to be for the world's salvation. 
And while- deserted by men, deserted by his own 
disciples, he was attended by those divine attesta- 
tions which could give him assurance that, when cast 
out by men and departing farthest from their most 
settled faiths, he was still proceeding in God's chosen 
way, though that way led to the cross. I do not 
venture to say what the reasons of the event were, 
but we know that he prayed for strength, and we 
can see at least an adaptation in these visible dis- 
plays to give him assurance that in this strange, 
lonely pilgrimage, terminating in death, he had the 
presence and favor and guidance of God. 

Let us turn now to the more general bearings of 
this event, viewed as a part of the historic revelation 
of Christian truth. 



94 



THE TRANSFIGURATION. 



1. The Transfiguration is one of the events which 
impa¥t a character of reality to the spiritual life. I 
do not mean to say that anything was directly 
taught, but the nature of the event was such as to 
throw some light on problems which have ever dis- 
turbed the human heart. Do the departed lose all 
interest in the world they have left behind ? In this 
narrative Moses and Elias appear conversing with 
Jesus. They converse with him on the event which 
most deeply concerned the welfare of mankind. But 
they were the representative men of the Hebrew 
race ; and thus it was a visible exhibition of the 
interest taken by the inhabitants of heaven in the 
welfare of the earth. Again, the circumstances at- 
tending the event suggest an answer to the question, 
Where are the departed ? May we not be warrant- 
ed in believing that the spiritual world is around us, 
and hid from us only by the veil of the senses ? The 
appearance to the three disciples was miraculous. 
But wherein consisted the miracle ? Not in awak- 
ening the dead from their graves, not in calling them 
down from some remote and isolated sphere, but in 
opening the eyes of the disciples. The disciples 
themselves were the subjects of the miracle. It was 
their eyes which were opened ; and being opened, 
they beheld what was already there. Like the young 
man whose opened eyes beheld the hills around 
Mount Sion filled with the chariots and the hosts 
of the Lord. "When death comes with its miracu- 
lous awakening, when it couches these eyes of sense, 
we shall behold, as I believe, not Moses and Elias 
only, but the innumerable company of the departed, 



THE TKANSFIGUKATION. 



95 



the inhabitants of the spiritual world, hid from us 
now by the very senses which reveal the world of 
matter. And in the fact that Moses and Elias, the 
lawgiver and the prophet, retained their interest in 
this world, that they felt a heavenly sympathy in 
Christ's great sacrifice for the world's salvation, I 
would see the illustration of a universal fact, — of 
the fact that they who advance onward into higher 
and fairer worlds lose neither the memory nor the 
affections which united them to those whom they 
have left behind. 

2. It seems to me a most instructive circumstance 
that the great manifestations of God came to the 
Saviour under very peculiar circumstances, — at the 
times when, on one side, his soul was most tried, and 
when, on the other, there was the most devout dedi- 
cation of himself to that office to which God had 
appointed him. For example, at the decisive hour 
of his baptism, when he was publicly separated from 
the world for his great work, a voice from heaven 
responded to the visible sign. After the forty days 
of preparation in the wilderness, when he was about 
to take the final step from retirement into the world ; 
— when the time approached for his death, and he 
was called upon to go up to the last Passover at Je- 
rusalem ; — and in Gethsemane, when looking for- 
ward to the agonies to which he was surrendering 
himself ; — such were the occasions on which visible 
aid and support were given. 

In this connection the striking fact which de- 
mands attention is this ; — these divine interposi- 
tions were not fortuitous, but in all cases were in 



96 



THE TRANSFIGURATION. 



response to acts of self-consecration to God and hu- 
man good. It was when his soul was lifted up in 
prayer, and when prayer became an act of self-con- 
secration, — in these holiest and loftiest moments, 
when he drew near to God, saying. Not my will, but 
thine, be done. — that the Divine help came to Mm. 
It seems like a proclamation to mankind, that, if we 
but have a holy purpose in our hearts, God will draw 
near to us, and will help us. When we surrender 
ourselves to the appetites and passions, when we 
consecrate ourselves to selfish ends and the world's 
favor, we must look for help only to the sovereign 
which we serve. If we serve Mammon, we must 
look for that aid only which Mammon gives to his 
servants. We withdraw ourselves from God and 
from his influences. But when in holy purposes we 
draw near to him, we have the assurance of Scrip- 
ture that he will work within us both to will and to 
do. It is one of the most blessed convictions, that 
God is nearest to us in our best moments. A holy 
purpose opens the heart to divine influences. Like 
the prophet of old, when we lay our offering on the 
altar, fire descends on it from heaven. 

3. Again, the narrative of the Transfiguration 
suggests what may serve to correct our worldly esti- 
mate of things, and give us more just views of the 
events most interesting in Heaven's sight. It was 
not in the season of triumph, but in the hour of 
mental struggle and agony, that ckvine manifesta- 
tions were vouchsafed to Christ. At that time, great 
events were transacting in the world, but the heav- 
enly visitants passed over cities and palaces, passed 



THE TRANSFIGURATION. 



97 



over banded legions and ambitious leaders, to pause 
here, where one, on a solitary hill-top of Judaea, was 
dedicating himself to death. Judaea itself was hard- 
ly to be recognized on the map of the world. The 
spectacle of the wearied pilgrim who knelt under 
the stars and prayed, while three wearied follow- 
ers slept, was not one to attract the gaze of man- 
kind. And yet to that scene came the inhabitants 
of heaven. On that spot, unobserved of man, cen- 
tred the interest of the higher world. The Divine 
presence revealed itself, not to the mighty and the 
triumphant, but to one whose dreary journey should 
end at Calvary. God's help was given to the very 
one who was despised and rejected of men. To 
human eyes, nothing could have seemed less impor- 
tant than what took place in the soul of him who 
bowed before God in the night dews of that lonely 
hill. But to Him who sees the beginning and the 
end, there was the turning-point of the world's his- 
tory. And such it has proved. The glory of the 
Caesars has crumbled, but the self-consecration of 
Tabor and Gethsemane has been the regeneration 
and hope of mankind. 

The most remarkable commentary on this scene 
is that of the great artist who, in picturing it, has 
united with it the event which, during the Saviour's 
absence, was transpiring at the foot of the mountain. 
A maniac is there, brought to the disciples to be 
healed. The worst form of human misery, the an- 
guish of the affections, the imploring cry for help, the 
ineffectual efforts to give relief, are all blended in that 
scene, which represents the struggles, the sorrows, the 

9 



98 



THE TRANSFIGUEATIOX. 



darkness, the weakness of the earth ; while above, in 
the serene heavens, the glorified form of the Saviour 
appears with his celestial companions. It is the art- 
ist's commentary on the event, — making it speak to 
the eye of earthly trial finding its consummation in 
heavenly peace. It is his explanation of the dark 
problem of human suffering. He would carry the 
thought onward to the end. The darkest mysteries 
of this life are such because we confine our view to 
this life alone. This present life is a fragment, and 
disjoined from that which is to come, every phenom- 
enon is unintelligible because we do not see the con- 
clusion. It is like the fragment of a marble slab 
which the antiquary discovers written over by some 
baffling inscription. Broken across, the half-lines 
are unintelligible ; but let the other fragment be found 
and annexed, and at once the record is as clear to 
those who now read as to those who first wrote it. 
This idea, the troubles of earth finding a solution in 
the peace of heaven, seems to be the artist's inter- 
pretation of the transfiguration. There .might be 
added to it the fact, that it is in the discipline of 
these mortal troubles those virtues are formed which 
prepare one for an immortal peace, and in this view 
the transfiguration becomes an emblem of the order 
and purpose of Providence, which in every present 
event looks forward to a completion in the future. 
Christ's sacrifice was not only the world's salvation, 
but he himself became perfect through suffering, and 
from the cross should enter into his glory. His way 
was through mockings and scourgings, through be- 
trayal and death, but it ended in the eternal man- 



THE TRANSFIGURATION, 



99 



sions. He was first the prince of sufferers, before he 
sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. 

As the Saviour passes up from the dark woes of 
earth into the holy communion of the Mount of 
Transfiguration, we behold an emblem of what shall 
be the case with every righteous purpose faithfully 
kept. Trial is the discipline of virtue, and thus the 
preparation for its blessedness. First the toil and 
then the harvest. Heroism is not the growth of self- 
indulgence, but comes forth radiant from scenes of 
struggle and pain. Where there is fidelity, life shall 
be a continued transfiguration. Self-sacrifice passes 
through the cloud, and in its heavenly state appears 
transfigured into disinterestedness. Conflict with 
temptation is transformed into strength of soul. Bod- 
ily pain becomes spiritual fortitude ; and sorrow is 
transformed into trust and faith ; and earth is the 
school of heaven. When we stand on the other side 
of the veil, what transformations shall we behold ! 
Here we witnessed those whose lives seemed blight- 
ed by trial, but who maintained a Christian fidelity. 
There the sicknesses, the burdens, the limitations, all 
dropped, the graces only remaining, they appear as 
the angels. Old age, worn and wasted, stoops and 
drinks what seemed the waters of death, and there 
transfigured finds it was the fountain of perpetual 
youth. The miracle of the transfiguration become 
universal, the deaf hear, the blind see, and every 
righteous purpose, though it seem to fail on earth, is 
seen to have been ever tending to its full accomplish- 
ment. 

There is one other point which more than any 



100 



THE TRAXSFIGUEATIOX. 



other, perhaps, has applications to our practical life. 
It furnishes the Christian answer to the repinings, 
the questions, and the difficulties which grow out of 
the troubles encountered in the performance of duty. 
For what did the heavenly visitants appear? It 
was not to save Christ from suffering ; it was not to 
suggest the possibility of avoiding it; but, on the con- 
trary, to express the sympathy of Heaven as he went 
forward to meet it. Their communion was of the 
death he should accomplish at Jerusalem. And so 
with all the other heavenly manifestations. In no 
case were they to deliver him from trial and death. 
No angels came down with flaming swords when he 
was betrayed ; no Elias descended to bear him un- 
harmed from the cross, but these manifestations were 
to give him strength, to fortify the purpose of self-sac- 
rifice ; and finally it was after the decisive act, after 
Judas had gone forth, and after he said, " Thy will 
be done," the angels came to strengthen him. It 
seems to me, that we have here a most instructive 
lesson. You have trials and sorrows to bear, and 
what renders it most dark, it is very likely that your 
severest trials are encountered in performing your 
most sacred duties. Many of the trials might be 
avoided, by quietly neglecting the duty, and it seems 
hard to you that your right efforts should be the very 
ones which involve you in trouble. There are those 
to whom the whole course of life, through a consci- 
entious endeavor to discharge faithfully its duties, is 
one of deprivation, trial, and self-sacrifice. They 
would fain be faithful, but the burden is heavy, the 
way is long, the night is dark, and their hearts grow 



THE TRANSMGDRATION. 



101 



despondent within them, till they not only doubt 
themselves, but doubt whether fidelity is not itself 
the great delusion. Here comes up the greatest of 
practical questions, Is one warranted, in order to es- 
cape the trouble, to evade the duty ? What is one 
to seek first in life, — happiness, or the will of God ? 
Are we to murmur and repine at the trials encoun- 
tered in the loyal service of our Maker, or are we to 
regard such wounds and scars as honorable witnesses 
to our fidelity ? And the whole life of Christ, not less 
than Tabor and Gethsemane, teaches us to think only 
of the duty. Come what may between, our purpose 
is to accomplish God's will ; and every trial borne 
in this cause shall hereafter be our rejoicing. Look 
at these trials, which must be met, if the duties of 
life are done, in no ignoble spirit. See them as they 
are. You need not make believe that trial is not 
trial ; or pain, pain ; but say to yourself, If I would 
accomplish the work which God has evidently given 
me to do, if I would be faithful in my place, here are 
trials which I must meet. I can avoid the trial only 
by avoiding the duty ; here God calls upon me to 
make some sacrifice, and in his name I will strive to 
do it. Following the Saviour, I will pray, not, Save 
me from this hour ! but, Help me to do thy will ! 
And I will not degrade this service of God by weak 
and selfish repinings that in his service in this great 
conflict of life there are efforts to be made, self-deni- 
als to be practised, and pains to be endured. The 
martyrs of old were said, in a striking figure, to be 
washed in the blood of the Lamb. They were bap- 
tized into his death. They followed his standard and 

9 * 



102 



THE TRANSFIGURATION. 



shared in his sufferings, and entered with him into 
his glory. 

Have this spirit, and there shall come seasons of 
renewal and strength from on high, — seasons when 
to you the world is transfigured ; — brief and few per- 
haps, but seasons when God shall seem to draw near 
to you. But these seasons, when the soul is lifted 
above the earth and its fears, will be those when there 
is the truest consecration of yourself to God's service. 
And those seasons, the highest and holiest of life, 
will not suggest methods of escape from trial, but en- 
courage you with a brave and cheerful fortitude to 
go on through the trial to the accomplishment of the 
duty. Your worldly and baser hours may teach a 
poorer lesson, but these say, Come what may, be faith- 
ful unto the end. They say, Give heed to the duty 
intrusted to you, and leave the result to the truth and 
justice of the Almighty. Fear not for a while to 
travel a rocky and a thorny road, if it be the one 
which Heaven has appointed. As it regards the pass- 
ing time, think only of being faithful to the duty, 
and as to the future, trust in God. 



SERMON VII. 



THY STATUTES, OUR SONGS. 

THY STATUTES HAVE BEEN MY SONGS IN THE HOUSE OF MY PIL- 
GRIMAGE. — Psalm cxix. 54. 

It may be uncertain whether this Psalm was 
written by David, or at some subsequent period. 
The sentiment, however, which is expressed, per- 
vades all the Psalms, and, especially, it imparts a 
sublime and victorious tone to those of the minstrel 
king. 

The character of David was inconsistent and im- 
perfect; but one characteristic everywhere appears, 
uttered in words, imparting energy to his deeds, — 
an unbounded, triumphant trust in God, and in the 
excellence of his laws. He does not merely submit 
to the will of God when he can no longer resist. He 
does not merely, in some vague and general way, 
trust in his goodness ; but the laws of God are the 
subjects of ceaseless wonder, adoration, and praise. 
We sometimes fancy that the grand conception of 
universal law and orderly arrangement in the uni- 
verse is comparatively modern ; and the great athe- 
istic work of the time assumes that the discovery of 



104 



THY STATUTES, OUR SONGS. 



law, to the same extent, displaces and annuls relig- 
ion, — that, in the progress of science, religion is 
naturally left behind, as the worn-out garb of a 
primitive and unenlightened age. Newton indeed, 
in the concluding chapter of his great work, derives 
from his calculations respecting the laws which rule 
the planetary orbs an evidence of the immediate 
providence of God : and most writers on science 
have recognized the hand of the Creator in the crea- 
tion. But David, though unskilled in science, saw 
enough to disclose the universal Order. Perhaps he 
was all the more impressed by it, because Ms mind, 
instead of dwelling on microscopic views, was fa- 
miliar only with the grandest laws of nature. But 
certainly the science of three thousand years has 
enabled no one to understand better the moral 
meaning embraced in this word Law, — has raised 
the mind of no one nearer to the height of this 
great argument. This idea of universal law, moral 
and natural, — the manifestation of the one great 
Lawgiver, — seemed to possess his mind ; and never 
to be present without awakening the profoundest 
emotions of awe and reverence. " My delight," he 
sung, " shall be in thy statutes." " The law of the 
Lord is perfect, converting the soul." " Great peace," 
he says, " have they who love thy law." " Let the 
floods clap their hands, and let the hills be joyful 
together before the Lord, for he cometh to judge 
the earth. With righteousness shall he judge the 
world, and the people with equity." Even in the 
fifty-first Psalm, in which are poured forth expres- 
sions of a more profound self-condemning remorse 



THY STATUTES, OUR SONGS. 



105 



than are to be found in the world beside, there is 
nothing mean or abject. He does not cease to rec- 
ognize the excellence of that divine law which con- 
demns him. It is no purpose of his to lie down 
passively in his degradation. From the darkness 
he looks up, and sees the steady lights of God's 
truth more clearly than ever. He sees the goodness 
of God in the works of nature. His language is, 
" I will trust in the Lord ; though he slay me, I will 
put my trust in him." And when he sees that there 
is nothing uncertain in this goodness, that the heav- 
ens and the earth are governed by laws, so that 
seed-time and harvest unfailingly return, and above 
all, when he looks at the moral laws by which right- 
eousness is sustained and enforced, his heart breaks 
forth into its sublimest strains. These laws of the 
Most High are the safety and glory of the world. 
It is the supreme good of man to know and obey 
them. David does not refer to what may be gained 
by obedience in a future life, but here and to-day 
" Blessed is the man who walks in the law of the 
Lord." It is no mere poetical sentiment, nor that 
which is beautiful and agreeable merely, which 
stirs his soul the most ; but " Thy statutes are my 
songs in the house of my pilgrimage." Thus was 
it that the Hebrew Psalmist, a man, judged by our 
standards, half Bedouin of the desert, half Oriental 
despot, looked on the laws of the Creator. The 
laws of God, the noblest manifestations of his wis- 
dom and love and justice ; obedience to these laws, 
the happiness, the privilege, and glory of man ; re- 
ligion, not merely an escape from future ruin, but 



106 



THY STATUTES, OUR SONGS. 



the blessed sunshine of to-day ; — in this way did he 
look on the government of God. And when we 
would celebrate in worthiest strains the majesty of 
the Almighty, we go back to the Hebrew Psalmist 
and take his words as the sublimest expressions of 
adoration which poet or sage has given, to chant in 
our anthems and songs of praise. "When the heart 
is most moved with trust and devotion, be it in pros- 
perity or in instant peril, in the lonely sick-chamber 
or the great crises of the world, in the way-side 
chapel or beneath the arches of the cathedral, we 
involuntarily find ourselves repeating his words as 
the sublimest expression of our sublimest emotions. 

There are those who would underrate the Old Tes- 
tament, as if somehow we had got beyond it. And 
doubtless the revelations of Christ have showered 
new and clearer light on the world. But though we 
may knoiv much more, is it quite certain that there 
has been any corresponding elevation in what is still 
more important to us, the religious sentiment ? On 
the contrary, what are we more wanting in, than in 
a just sense of the grandeur and excellence of the 
Divine government ? I fear that we might well re- 
coil from uttering as our own the words of David, — 
so far and so high do they go beyond our ordinary 
feelings and cenceptions. Is it not too often the 
case that religion presents itself, not as the noble 
service which it appeared to the Psalmist, but merely 
as a melancholy method of escape from everlasting 
woe ? He who thus views it, — and is it not a too 
common view ? — were it not for a future world, 
would be glad never to think of Religion. She 



THY STATUTES, OUR SONGS. 



107 



comes clad in sackcloth ; clirge-notes prevail over 
and drown her cheerful strains ; and whenever her 
shadow passes, it leaves a chillness in the air. To 
such a man the laws of God hang over the world 
like a black cloud, in whose folds slumber, not re- 
freshing showers, but the lightnings of his wrath. 
He submits, not because it is his choice, but because 
he dares not- defy the irresistible power of the Al- 
mighty. It is the feeling of the slave who takes no 
pleasure in his task-work, but does reluctantly what 
he is bidden, because he dares not disobey. 

Not such was the feeling of the Psalmist. In an 
age of imperfect revelation, his mind rose boldly 
and clearly, as the angel towards the sun, to the 
crowning truth of the righteous government of God. 
No consciousness of sin made him wish to bring the 
Divine requirements down to the level of his prac- 
tice ; and in the midst of surrounding peril and 
trouble he could say, " Thy statutes are my songs 
in the house of my pilgrimage." In this mortal 
journey, beset by fears and foes, I will look up and 
rejoice in the Lord, and his laws shall be my song. 

Time and again we find David giving thanks for 
single blessings, — for some special deliverance, - — for 
some felicity in his lot. In this he did no more than 
is done by most men. But what is peculiar is, the 
manner in which his mind rose to the larger concep- * 
tion of law, while he found in the laws of God, 
rather than in isolated cases of providential care, the 
most wondrous exhibitions of the Divine goodness. 
That which is termed the particular providence might 
be confined to an individual ; the law carried bless- 



108 



THY STATUTES, OUR SONGS. 



ings to the whole race of man, and perpetuated them 
from generation to generation. And thus regarding 
the government of God, seeing in it the orderly rule 
of law, and not the fluctuations of a capricious will, 
he fitly sang of the " statutes " of the Almighty. In 
them was the true sublimity. The flower that per- 
ished with the autumn spoke of God's goodness, — 
how much more those eternal laws by which the 
heavens revolve, and clouds and sunshine are bal- 
anced, and spring blossoms, and summer ripens, and 
the race is fed on the bounty of the year! There is 
something sublime in the mere idea of law; but 
what were those moral laws to which the Psalmist 
refers ? More beneficently than those of the natu- 
ral world, they surround the infant and unfold its 
early powers. They would guide the youth through 
dark ways and tempting scenes. Turning every 
way their flaming sword, they would protect the 
right against the invasion of wrong. They would 
guard the soul against the degradation of sin. They 
guide man in life, — they unlock the portals of eter- 
nity, and all his true interests are cared for, not occa- 
sionally, but by laws constant as the sun. 

The Psalmist had often sung in strains of devout 
gratitude the natural laws of that Being who had 
established the pillars of the heavens, who gave the 
seas their bounds, and whose benignant hand led 
round the seasons. When he contemplated the laws 
of the moral world and their beneficent ministra- 
tions, — saw them a curb on the oppressor, and the 
shield of the humble, — saw how they were the hope 
of the penitent, and the solace of the wretched, — 



THY STATUTES, OUR SONGS. 



109 



saw in them the support of virtue and the ever-pres- 
ent evidence of God's love, — well might the " stat- 
utes" of the Lord change themselves into sublime 
and cheerful hymns. Once the spheres in their 
courses were supposed to sing the honor of the Cre- 
ator. To the ear of the Psalmist, the moral order 
of the universe uttered a more glorious anthem of 
praise. 

" Thy statutes shall be my songs in the house of 
my pilgrimage." " In the house of my pilgrimage," 
not something remote as the stars of which the poet 
sings, but those statutes which teach me how to 
live on this mortal journey, — the statutes which pre- 
scribe my duty from day to day, which determine 
the labors and the sacrifices' of my pilgrimage, — 
these laws shall be my song. 

It is difficult for us, whose religion half the time 
is just enough to reproach our consciences and to 
disturb us as a sick man is disturbed by uneasy 
dreams, and not enough to brace the soul to right- 
eous purposes, — it is difficult for us to sympathize 
with these words. Had he spoken of sin, and the 
dread of God's judgments, we should better under- 
stand him. And yet what view of life is more 
essential than the one expressed in these words ? 

Whether we rebel against them or not, the duties 
of life remain ever the same. And though some- 
times hard, sometimes painful, they are always the 
wise and good requirements of Him who is infinitely 
good. How then shall we view them ? Let us take 
a lesson from common life. When the young man 
is trained in some vocation, we understand how es- 
10 



110 



THY STATUTES, OUR SONGS. 



sential it is that he should love it. If he grows up 
thinking its duties are arbitrary exactions to which 
he submits because he must, rebelling against them, 
seeking his pleasure somewhere else, and returning 
to them with a gloomy and reluctant heart, we know 
how mean and cheap and base his career will be. 
But life is a vocation whose duties God appoints. 
Whether we accept them cheerfully or rebelliously, 
there they are, — our duties, — to be performed by us. 
If we look on them as hard exactions, if we persist 
in regarding the duties of life as its task-work, we 
serve God in the spirit of a slave, — annulling the 
moral worth of what we do by the slavish spirit in 
which we do it. There is not a more important les- 
son for life than this, — to make the duties of life its 
pleasures ; never to be satisfied with ourselves till 
we are able to feel and say : " These duties furnish 
the highest occupation to me for mind and hand 
and heart. I will honor them : they are of God's 
appointment, and take their character from Him. I 
will rejoice to do them. If pleasure comes to me 
from other sources, I will be thankful, but I will find 
my happiness in the performance of these duties. I 
will not live as a slave ; I will serve God as a free 
man and as his child, — if often heedless, thankless, 
and disobedient, still his child. I will proclaim 
before men and angels what I know to be the truth, 
that the highest privilege of man is to have this 
heavenly guidance in duty." Is not this the true 
view ? Then let our souls rise to it ; not bemoaning 
our lot, but taking up his words who in darkest days 
could say, " Thy statutes shall be my song in the 



THY STATUTES, OUR SONGS. 



Ill 



house of my pilgrimage." I will sing not merely or 
chiefly of mercies which bless the passive heart, not 
interrupted enjoyments, but the " statutes " of the 
Lord will I sing. 

" In the house of my pilgrimage." In David's 
view, Religion was for the daily life. The statutes 
of which he sung guided him in his pilgrimage, and 
the holiest office of religion was to hallow the com- 
mon life. We sometimes hear Religion spoken of as 
too refined, too sacred, to be brought into the dust 
and defilement of our daily cares. It would rob her 
of her sanctity and majesty. But let us put away 
such misjudgments. Religion is not a fragile plant, 
to be withered by the sun and broken by a breath. 
Her place is not in some lonely hermitage or rarely 
visited temple, — a lifeless statue set up merely for a 
periodical homage ; but in the soul, — there is its 
dwelling-place and throne. There it whispers its 
encouragements, and proclaims its laws, and keeps 
before the mind divine motives for a just and pious 
life. And where should Religion be with man, if not 
in the place where he is tried and tempted, — where 
he most needs her help, and where, oftentimes, she is 
the only power that can help him ? 

Sacred places! sacred seasons! fitted for relig- 
ious thought and purpose, — where are they? The 
poetical mind answers, " Where devout men have 
worshipped, and prophets have lived, and martyrs 
have died." And such places should be sacred to 
the memory and the heart ; but in the eye both of 
reason and faith there are places clothed with a far 
more solemn interest,— places where devout thoughts 



112 



THY STATUTES, OUR SONGS. 



should be more present, and God nearer the soul. 
The place of most serious solemnity to any one of 
us is that where we encounter our most serious 
responsibilities, — where we are most tempted, — 
and where our dangers and duties meet. No matter 
where that place is, — in the church or in the home, 
— in the workshop or the counting-room, — in the 
court of justice or place of amusement, — that to 
you is a place of solemn moment, and fidelity shall 
make it sacred to you for ever. A frivolous mind 
may fail to see what momentous interests are decided 
there, but that alters not the reality. The duties of 
that place connect it with God, the source of duty 
Its temptations, responsibilities, and trials all pass 
under the Omniscient eye. There goes on the fear- 
ful struggle between the powers of good and evil, 
and there the soul loads and clogs its wings, or pre- 
pares itself for the skies. And more fearfully solemn 
becomes the place, if the heedless mind forgets what 
spiritual perils and duties converge upon it, if no 
hallowing thoughts visit it, if no reference is there 
made to the Divine Majesty, — and most fearful, 
when God is there and we heed it not. On other 
places we look as spectators ; but there is the battle- 
field on which our fate is decided ; and from the 
scenes and deeds which transpire there, that book is 
filled which holds the record of our lives. 

To such places the Psalmist refers when he speaks 
of the " house of our pilgrimage." It is in such 
places and scenes, — amidst the common bewilder- 
ments of passion, and the blinding interests and se- 
ductions of the day, that we need a safe guidance. 



THY STATUTES, OUR SONGS. 



113 



Once fidelity was obliged to prove itself in the dun- 
geon or at the stake. But those days have passed ; 
and the test of fidelity is found in the way in which 
the ordinary duties of life are performed. It is not 
on a few great and exceptional occasions that we 
need direction ; but still more in this daily " pilgrim- 
age " which constitutes the substance of life. There- 
fore will we give God thanks for a religion which, 
like the sun, showers its light on our daily paths. 
We will thank him that we have a safe chart for the 
voyage of life. And these " statutes " which shine 
from every headland, whose light breaks out of the 
darkness, — these " statutes " of the Lord shall be 
our " song." 

Nor here alone. Seasons of anxiety and doubt 
visit us, — every support seems to fail, — we despair 
of ourselves and the world. Conscious of our weak- 
ness, in the midst of confusion and disorder, when 
human foresight is baffled, and the wisest plans of 
men come to naught, what source of composure or 
hope have we left ? There is one, — and one alone. 
It is the certainty that there is one Being who sees 
the beginning and the end, — to whom this seeming 
confusion is no disorder at all ; — a Being who over- 
rules the actions of men, and, while he leaves man 
free, brings good out of evil. Through these pertur- 
bations of human affairs, as through those of the 
heavenly bodies, runs a controlling and omnipotent 
law. We know that there is no chance in the result, 
— no capriciousness or forgetfulness in Him who 
rules over all. And when we lose our faith in our- 
10 * 



114 



THY STATUTES, OUR SONGS. 



selves and in man, we will still trust in him, and his 
" statutes shall be our song." 

David could go even further than this. When per- 
ils beset him, and it seemed as if all his plans and 
hopes were to go down into night and the grave, even 
then he could say, " Though I walk through the val- 
ley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; thy rod 
and thy staff they comfort me." He went on into 
the deepening shadows, trusting in God. It was a 
blessed trust, which every human being needs. There 
are mystery and darkness always over the future. 
What shall be on the morrow even, we know not, 
and the full meaning of the dread words death, eter- 
nity, retribution, who shall declare ? Cur feet stum- 
ble on the dark mountains. Thanks be unto God, 
that in our weakness and ignorance we know that 
God reigns, and that while we abide by his laws we 
cannot go astray. " Come what may," then let the 
heart say, " by them I will abide and fear no evil." 
The stars may mislead us, but never the laws of 
God. We will rejoice in the laws of the Lord. So 
he could speak who lived amidst the dangers of a 
dark age. Taught as we are by Christ of God's cafe, 
it becomes us still more to say, " We will trust in the 
Lord, and his statutes shall be our song." 

When we have the privilege of knowing those 
whose characters have been formed by this trust, we 
can never doubt its divine worth. Twice during the 
past week I have witnessed the last parting with 
those who through fourscore years had exhibited in 
their lives the power and the beauty of this senti- 
ment of religious reliance. Amidst cares and sor- 



THY STATUTES, OUR SONGS. 



115 



rows and trials, they had maintained their hearts in 
peace. The comforters of those who had known less 
trouble than themselves, — a source of strength to 
those who might have seemed stronger than they, — 
and performing the duties of life with a tranquil and 
cheerful mind, which might put to shame our anxious 
and murmuring spirits, their cheerful trust seemed, to 
find its best expression in the words of the Psalmist, 
— " Thy statutes are my songs in the house of my 
pilgrimage." 

One of these, venerable in her years, held pecu- 
liar relations to those who meet in this place of wor- 
ship ; for the instructions of the son to whom so 
many of you had the privilege of listening for so 
many years evidently caught their most remarkable 
characteristics of wisdom and truthful directness, of 
grace and cheerful piety, from the mother to whom 
he was bound in most intimate and confidential re- 
lations. It was one of those cases where the mod- 
est and retiring excellences of the mother at length 
unawares found utterance through the eloquent lips 
of the child, and she, whose gentle voice was heard 
only in her home, at length, through one whom she 
loved, spoke to charmed and listening assemblies. 
As has been truly said of her, her life extended over 
fourscore years, and she lived them all. Mind and 
heart lived. Age crippled the body, but did not touch 
the mind, while her affections seemed only to grow 
warmer and fresher with the passing years. The 
honesty and disinterestedness and tranquil trust of 
her heart lent a tranquil dignity to her features and 
her manners. She was a centre of attraction, and 



116 



THY STATUTES, OUR SONGS. 



why, all knew except herself. Those who came near 
her and under her influence thought better of the 
world, and saw in her character an illustration and 
evidence of the worth of religious trust. Children 
loved her ; and no matter how many came, her heart 
was large enough to take them all in. A perpetual 
sunshine was around her, and for the moment the 
world had a fairer look to those who left her. She 
forgot no one but herself, and there was never a day 
when some one was not happier because of her. 
Her last acts, when the feeble hand could hardly do 
the bidding of the heart, were kind offices of remem- 
brance. It was a fair old age, such as men love and 
God crowns with his favor. And death was like the 
life, tranquil, the sun setting without a cloud, to rise 
on another world. 

The text speaks of life as a " pilgrimage." And 
standing by the mortal remains of the departed, we 
become more conscious of the meaning of the word. 
This is not our " abiding-place." We are travellers 
towards a better country. Let us not then speak of 
death as the blight and end of life, but rather say : " I 
expect to live, I hope to live hereafter with the good 
in heaven. Heaven ! — the society and employments 
of those whom the soul honors. There I hope to join 
those whom I have loved ; there I hope to behold 
clearer manifestations of the Divine presence. And 
on this 6 pilgrimage,' — not for a few days, and end- 
ing in the grave, but for the immortal life, — I will 
trust-in the Lord ! I will give thanks to him, that 
at every crossway there is a guiding sign. I will re- 
joice in his laws, I will endeavor to understand how 



THY STATUTES OUR SONGS. 



117 



truly they are the laws of peace and hope ; and as I 
journey onward, it shall be not with a rebellious 
heart ; but ' the statutes 5 which God has given for 
our guidance shall be 'the song of my pilgrim- 
age.' " 



SERMON VIII. 



NATURE WITH AND WITHOUT A REVELATION OF 
IMMORTALITY. 

OUR SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST, "WHO hath abolished death, axd 

HATH BROUGHT LIFE AND IMMORTALITY TO LIGHT THROUGH 

the gospel. — 2 Timothy i. 10. 

The faith in immortality which we have, we owe 
to the revelations of Jesus Christ. Not that others 
who have derived nothing from the Christian revela- 
tions have not had a belief in a future state of ex- 
istence; the longings of bereaved affection have led 
men to hope, the reasonings of philosophy have 
encouraged expectation ; but for all that is pecu- 
liar to our faith, and for that which above all the 
world has longed, its confident assurance, we are 
indebted to Jesus Christ. 

The Apostles constantly present this doctrine as 
the first of all, excepting those which relate to the 
character of God and authority of Christ. They 
were so situated, — living in the midst of a world 
which either did not receive it at all, or confined it 
to the few great and wise, or received it distorted by 
superstitions, — that they could appreciate its value. 
We are so familiar with it, that we become insensi- 



NATURE AND A REVELATION OF IMMORTALITY. 119 

ble to the manner in which that one truth, taught 
authoritatively, has like a sun lighted up the world. 

Let us spend this morning in calling to mind how 
extensively and how benignantly it has changed the 
ideas of mankind on subjects of vital interest. 

1. It revolutionizes all man's ideas of this world 
in which we live. Without it, the world is covered 
with gloom. Everything which the eye sees is as- 
sociated with the saddest of all thoughts, decay and 
death. The great fact that first meets the eye, is 
not merely life, but limited life, — life terminating 
in death. The mind is peculiarly susceptible of 
these sad impressions. The fall of a tree which 
overshadowed your childhood's home, the dilapida- 
tion of the dwelling of your birth, the sinking or 
mouldering of a mere monument over those whom 
you loved, will over most minds throw a passing 
shade. 

But without the Christian revelations, this fact of 
decay and death predominates and tyrannizes over 
all others. The flower to-day is brilliant with hues 
of heaven, but it will fade to-morrow. The forest 
is covered with foliage, but the leaves must all 
wither. Other flowers shall bloom in their place, 
and the forests be clothed anew, but the leaves and 
blossoms we look on perish and for ever. The 
works of human art and skill and strength moulder, 
are defaced, and crumble, and yet they often survive 
the memory of their authors. What is true of na- 
ture is true of man. A few years of infant weak- 
ness and youthful hope, a few years of matured 
strength, of swelling schemes and laborious efforts, 



120 



NATURE WITH AND WITHOUT 



and all at once the eye begins to grow dim, the 
frame to lose its elasticity, and eclipse is drawn in 
slow shadow over the brightness of the intellect. 
Your friends are stricken with sickness, the golden 
bowl of life is broken at the fountain, the wheel 
at the cistern, and the beaming eye and speaking 
countenance are frozen into the stony repose of 
death. A family circle is united in closest bonds. 
Spend a few years away and return, and that circle 
is broken and scattered. Of the millions now on 
the earth, so busy with schemes, so engrossed as if 
they could not be spared, as if there were not time 
to die, — a few years will pass, and not one will be 
here. The broad circumference of our human pros- 
pect has on every side its horizon bounded by graves. 
For six thousand years men have lived on the earth, 
but not the same; the thick ranks of generations 
have gone down and disappeared like bubbles on the 
sea of death, — and that sea, sluggish and dark and 
encircling the narrow islet of life on which we stand 
like the survivors of a vast shipwreck, is rising upon 
us and ready to receive us into its bosom. In the 
past are the dead ; in the present, the dying. In 
the disinterred sepulchres of Etruria, dating back to 
the times of Moses and David, the sole relics of a 
civilization which had reached its height before Rome 
existed, are many pictures and sculptures revealing 
the common life and tastes of the people. There 
are races, and martial games, and feasts, and dances, 
and men and women watching over the dying and 
dead, and the procession of souls under good and 
evil genii, — showing that the human heart was 



A REVELATION OF IMMORTALITY. 



121 



then agitated by the same hopes and fears, and 
moved by the same passions and affections, as now. 
But those beating hearts are still, and their very 
dust has disappeared from their tombs. In the walls 
of one of the sepulchres is the picture of a funeral 
festival. On luxurious couches, around festal tables, 
the guests are met in honor of the dead. It is a fit 
symbol of what this world is without the revelations 
of Christ. The earth and sky above it are but the 
floor and roof of a larger sepulchre. There is joy 
within its gloomy enclosure, but it is the feverish 
joy of those soon to be no more, — the revelry of the 
tomb, pleasure at the side of death. 

And this picture hardly begins to be shaded till we 
reflect that with every death among these myriads 
has been the breaking of human ties, the shedding 
of human tears, and the bitter grief of human hearts. 
The bosom of the earth is swelling with graves, and 
yet to every one of those unnumbered graves afflic- 
tion has followed, and the husband, the parent, the 
wife, the child, has returned to a desolate home to 
mourn for the departed. 

Then there are the apprehensions which each in- 
dividual feels at the approach of the inevitable hour. 
I do not say that annihilation is a thing which all 
fear. Doubtless there are those who would gladly 
leap into that dreary gulf, if by losing their con- 
sciousness they might also lose their terror of the 
future. But unless the fear of annihilation is lost in 
a greater fear, a belief in it, or even a doubt about 
it, is enough to fill the world with unmoving gloom. 
Man is made to love life, and he recoils from death 
11 



122 



NATURE WITH AND WITHOUT 



No lot of life is felt to be so dreadful as that of 
death, if it be a cessation of existence. 

When it was known that a modem people, in the 
frenzy of the time, had inscribed over the burial- 
place, " Death is an eternal sleep," it caused a 
shudder to thrill through the heart of Christendom. 
There had been multitudes who had speculated 
and philosophized and played with scepticism, half 
thinking, perhaps, that they accepted notions whose 
want of foundation they would probably be con- 
vinced of when their presence was no longer want- 
ed ; but the knowledge that there were men who 
were terribly in earnest in this docritne of de- 
spair, — who believed, and intended to act on the 
belief, that man was only a worm, to whom the life 
of a man was essentially no more precious than 
that of the brute, — in whose minds the affections 
and the conscience lost their sanctity by becoming 
the transient qualities of a creature which to-morrow 
should cease to be, — filled even these, doubtless, 
with dismay. When they saw their own notions em- 
braced in earnest, and in a way to have their true 
character revealed, they started back aghast from 
them, like the Israelitish king from the spectre 
which he had himself caused to be evoked from 
the grave. 

Death an eternal sleep. There was another in- 
scription written almost at the same time, which 
was truer to the realities of human nature. It 
was determined about this time to remove the re- 
mains of the dead from the burying-grounds within 
the walls of Paris. The remains were deposited in 



A REVELATION OP IMMORTALITY. 123 



the catacombs, spreading to vast distances under 
ground, from which the stones had been quarried of 
which the city was built. Here were laid the relics 
of ten generations, — a Paris of the dead many times 
more populous than the Paris of the living. By the 
light of tapers, the traveller descended ninety feet, to 
a world of silence, over which rushed and rolled the 
world of noise and confusion above. Following 
down a narrow subterranean gallery, he at length 
reached a massive iron gate, through which one 
passed into the galleries and the halls within whose 
sides were deposited the dead. And over this gate 
was, not the inscription of despair, but one which 
Christianity has taught the human heart Trans- 
lated, it read, "Resting in hope"; — an inscription 
which Grecian wisdom had never learned to write, 
but which Christianity, from the burial of her first 
dead, had put upon their gravestones. " Resting in 
hope." The torches which revealed these words, 
written over the vast sepulchre, brought back to the 
mind a truth which has shed more light into the 
world than the midday sun. 

The common appearances of decay sadden the 
mind. But could we embrace in one view this uni- 
versal scene of dissolution, when life springs out of 
death only again to sink into it, where the lamp is 
lit only to begin to expire, — could all the tones of 
fear and grief which rise from every corner of the 
earth, all the wailings over the dying and the dead, 
unite together and swell into one funeral dirge, — 
every tone of joy would be drowned, and hope 
would cease in this vain conflict against dissolution. 



124 



NATURE WITH AND WITHOUT 



Such is the first aspect of life. What shall re- 
move this weight of eternal gloom from the earth ? 
It is not nature, as it appears to the senses. It 
has not been philosophy. It has been removed 
from us; and it is by light from heaven, — by the 
revelations of Christ. 

I have said that for our faith, with its peculiar- 
ities and its assurance, we are indebted to Christian- 
ity. It should be remembered that our faith includes 
not only one, but several different points. It is not 
mere existence, but a personal and conscious exist- 
ence, — it is a personal existence to be continued 
under a perfect moral law, and that law embodied 
in a paternal providence. 

If, with all the direct and indirect influences of 
Christian nurture, and surrounded from childhood 
by a Christian atmosphere, in addition to all the aid 
derived from philosophy, there are those who still 
find it hard to believe, how would it be if from the 
moral universe the light of Christianity were struck 
out ? As well expect men to see clearly by the stars, 
whose glazed eyes do not admit the light even of the 
sun. 

"When I consider how nature appears to the senses, 
I feel as if for all that is bright and cheerful in life 
we are indebted to Christianity, almost as much as 
flowers and skies for their varied colors to the beams 
of the sun. When I would form some conception 
of what Christianity has done for man in this single 
point, I am not satisfied with some general recogni- 
tion of aid. Through the gloom of nature, I hear 
not merely the sighing of a timid hope. But over 



A REVELATION OF IMMORTALITY. 



125 



these vast funeral mounds, heaped above the genera- 
tions of the dead, I see the angel of the Lord de- 
scend, and from mid-heaven proclaim, " They are 
not here ; they are risen." And the world is lighted 
up by that celestial presence, and the hearts of men 
swell with immortal hope. 

u I am the resurrection and the life." The doc- 
trine of a future life changes the aspect of even in- 
animate nature. The leaf may wither, the flower 
may fade, the heavens roll up like a burning scroll, 
and pass away ; but every pure feeling, every devout 
and grateful thought, the more enlarged and trusting 
faith in the Divine Providence which we have de- 
rived from the natural world, survives for ever in the 
soul, though that world itself perish. The forms of 
nature may still decay, but they leave their best life 
behind in the soul of man. 

It removes the gloom and hopeless desolation from 
the infirmities and decays that attend the life of man. 
If this life be all, there is nothing more sad than its 
last years. The few years of youth and manhood 
have been spent laboriously in acquiring whatever 
may seem worth possessing, when gradually the 
power of exertion is felt to be diminished, — many 
plans and purposes must be given up. Nor this 
only. The circle of enjoyments is narrowed and the 
capability of enjoying diminished. One friend after 
another is taken away, sickness and infirmities begin 
to thicken and press heavily, and soon all must end 
in death. But in the light of Christian faith, these 
infirmities, though they do not cease to be burdens, 
lose their hopelessness. They are the stages and 
11 * 



126 



NATURE WITH AND WITHOUT 



processes by which the spirit looses itself from the 
body, — the hard and rocky ascent to the summit 
whence the spirit takes its flight. And death is the 
relief and the release. "We read of those who in 
other days in laborious journeys sought the fountain 
of immortal youth, counting pain and toil as noth- 
ing, so they could reach its brink. That fountain, 
in a higher sense, the Christian finds. Death is the 
restorer of youth. The infirm and aged enter under 
the gloomy arch, and drink of the dark and freezing 
waters, and pass on from our sight, immortal. At 
that boundary they leave what belongs to the earth. 
The burden of the flesh is laid aside, the blind re- 
ceive their sight, the lame walk ; that which is mortal 
drops and perishes, that what is immortal may more 
entirely live. Think not of them as they were here, 
weighed down with sicknesses and infirmities, but 
with affections alive, and all holy principles alive, 
and clothed with an immortal body. 

And that future world, instead of a boundless 
abyss of darkness, is a region of life and light. Rev- 
elation adds new worlds to that which is perceived 
by the senses, — worlds none the less real because 
hid behind the glare of that which presses on our 
eyes. While the sun is above the horizon, the heav- 
ens seem empty, and the earth alone seems looked 
on by that shining orb. But as the sun sinks and 
the shadows fall across the hills, one by one the stars 
are ushered into the sky, a glorious host, innumera- 
ble worlds, showing forth the wisdom and power of 
God. Then we perceive how much, all the time, has 
been around us, and how infinitely more vast and 



A REVELATION OF IMMORTALITY. 127 

sublime was that which in the brightness of the day 
was unseen, than what was visible. So revelation 
draws aside from the eye of the spirit the veil be- 
tween, and we behold the empty void filled with 
those whom we called dead, alive again, — the mor- 
tal become immortal, and those whom we mourned 
joined with the ever-growing company in eternal 
mansions of those dear to them ; and the earth itself 
appears but the threshold of a vast abode, peopled 
by the creatures and filled with the light of the Infi- 
nite Love. 

As we stand by the grave and look forward into 
the future, and endeavor to form some just concep- 
tions of the true destiny of man, we see more dis- 
tinctly what should be the first objects of human 
pursuit in this world. So long as a man lives here, 
if we speak of his losses or his gains, we are apt to 
include under these words only the possessions and 
pleasures and honors of the earth. We sympathize 
with him in his struggles for temporary advantages, 
congratulate him on his success, and regret his fail- 
ures. And in its true place and proportion all this 
is right and well. But stand by the grave and look 
into the future, and our judgment of the value of 
these prizes changes. Whether a man suffered or 
enjoyed a little more or a little less, is hardly thought 
of. Then we call to mind his affections, his love of 
usefulness, the sweetness of his patience and forti- 
tude, his integrity, his reverential trust in God. A 
single virtue is worth more than all the honors man 
can heap on man, and the humblest moral excellence 
of more value than all the treasures of the world. 



128 



MATURE WITH AXD WITHOUT 



For there we love to remember them in the past, and 
to think of them in the future. 

May this faith in the immortal life be our guide in 
living. We need to cherish this faith with habitual 
care as the counterpoise to the temptations of the 
present hour. Consider that life here but begins, 
and squander not on the present the hopes of the 
future. Let the examples of the good who have 
left us teach you the worth of a virtuous and Chris- 
tian life, — teach you how that, and that alone, can 
finally avail yon. Let the departure of those you 
have loved or honored call your thoughts up to that 
higher world to which they now belong. Let their 
memory be cherished, not chiefly as a subject of 
mourning, but that it may enforce the lessons of vir- 
tue which they taught by word and example while 
their voices were still heard in their earthly homes. 
And remember that to you the inevitable hour ap- 
proaches which shall try as by fire all earthly treas- 
ures. In that dread hour, when the books of the 
past are once more opened and the judgment of life 
is pronounced, kind and beneficent and holy affec- 
tions will be the wings of the soul. Then will you 
most value what you have done for others, while 
what you have done for yourself in a selfish spirit 
you will gladly forget. Then neither wisdom nor 
strength will be your stay, but humble trust in the 
mercy of God. And the only treasures which will 
abide the scrutiny of that day will be the virtues of 
a just and pious life. 

This morning, throughout Christendom, there has 
been a recognition of the great fact of Christ's res- 



A REVELATION OF IMMORTALITY. 129 

urrection. The heart of mankind acknowledges it 
as the symbol and the pledge that the hope is well 
founded which dares to look up from this realm of 
mortality to the realm of the immortal life. From 
great cathedrals, towering over the cities of the older 
world, from humble churches, hid in the obscurity of 
a hundred lands, the emblems of sadness have been 
removed to give place to those of joy and triumph. 
The wailing dirges, slow chanted by ten thousand 
choirs, have given place to the tones of an exultant 
music. But among all the methods of celebration, 
none better expresses the sentiment of the occasion 
than that of the Moravians. At sunrise all the 
brethren assemble in the churchyard, in solemn 
commemoration of those who, during the preceding 
year, have fallen asleep in the Lord. Over the 
graves of their kindred, they offer to God the 
thanksgivings of a trusting and an immortal hope, 
and, their thoughts rising from the grave to the 
heavens, they join together in hymns of praise and 
joy in honor of Him who is the " resurrection and 
the life." 

As we meet this day, and look around, and can 
no longer behold those who were with us, but are 
with us no more, — as we become conscious of the 
places vacant at our sides, and empty in our homes, 
— our thoughts shall not go back to the grave, but 
shall ascend to those brighter realms whither they 
have gone before us. The early Christians buried 
their dead under the altar, that the memory of the 
departed might mingle with all their thoughts of 
God. So shall it be with us. We will give thanks 



130 NATURE AND A REVELATION OF IMMORTALITY. 

this morning, that, while we look on the grave, we 
are permitted also to look upward to a world where 
sorrow and death are no more known. We will 
give thanks to God, that, as we go down the dark 
valley, we are permitted with our mortal eyes to see 
rising behind the horizon of the grave the first 
beams of an immortal day. We will thank God in 
grateful hymns, that there is comfort in sorrow, and 
hope in death. We will commemorate with thanks- 
givings Him who is the " resurrection and the life." 



SERMON IX, 



PROVIDENCE, 

ARE NOT FITE SPARROWS SOLD FOR TWO FARTHINGS ? AND NOT 
ONE OF THEM IS FORGOTTEN BEFORE GOD : BET EVEN THE VERT 
HAIRS OF TOUR HEAD ARE ALL NUMBERED. FEAR NOT, THERE- 
FORE '. TE ARE OF MORE VALUE THAN MANY SPARROWS. — Luke 

xii. 6, 7. 

Were it possible for one to grow up to mature 
years without any knowledge of God, and then to be 
taught, in a manner which should convince him of its 
truth, this doctrine of providential care which we find 
in the text, it seems as if he must be overwhelmed 
by its vastness, and by the reverential,* adoring, and 
grateful thoughts that must rush in and possess his 
soul. This doctrine, not of an avenging, but of a pa- 
ternal Providence, that God exercises an immediate 
care over every creature that he has made, from him 
that weareth purple and a crown unto him that is 
humbled in earth and ashes, is peculiar to Christian- 
ity. It is its foundation doctrine. And yet, strange- 
ly enough, it is one which the minds of men often 
but half and hesitatingly receive. I ask your atten- 
tion to this subject as one of supreme moment, — of 
far higher moment than those which we term prac- 



132 



PROVIDENCE. 



tical, — because all practical virtues derive vitality 
from a prevailing sense of the being and providence 
of God. We speak of a Providence as the consola- 
tion of sorrow. We underrate it. It is the founda- 
tion and life of all practical morals and religion; 
and whatever tends to give it a larger place in our 
minds is promoting, not one, but all virtues. Our 
moral weakness lies, not in wrong opinions about 
this or that, but in the want of a prevailing and con- 
trolling sense of the nearness and providence of God. 
We cannot help believing in a God. We are per- 
haps ready to admit, what heathen philosophy taught, 
that he exercises a general providence over the for- 
tunes of the world. We may adopt the modern 
phrase, and speak of a Providence in history. But 
when we come to the Christian doctrine, that God 
cares for each human being, that he is ready to hear 
our prayers and help us in our needs, that each one 
of us personally stands in this relation of dependence 
to the All-merciful Creator, we hesitate, and pause, 
and doubt. The gulf between seems too great to 
be overpassed. And yet doubts on this point par- 
alyze religion. For it is this doctrine which gives 
meaning to prayer and to worship, which makes it 
reasonable to look to God in our sorrows and our 
fears, nay, which gives significance to his manifesta- 
tions of himself through Jesus Christ. For Chris- 
tianity throughout assumes, not merely a general, but 
a personal relation between God and his creatures. 

To avoid the difficulties which embarrass them, 
men have tried to make a distinction between a gen- 
eral and a particular Providence. But the difference 



PROVIDENCE. 



133 - 



is merely verbal, and not in the reality of things. In 
being general it is also particular. Just as gravita- 
tion attracts the earth and holds it in its place in gen- 
eral, but does this by attracting each grain of sand 
in particular, and by attracting it as much as if it 
were alone in space ; so God, in caring for all man- 
kind, cares for each individual in particular. 

This is the doctrine of Providence, as our Saviour 
teaches it. He never wearies of impressing on men 
the great truth of the paternal care of God. Not a 
sparrow, not a hair of the head, falls to the ground 
without his knowledge. Call no man Father upon 
earth, for one is your Father who is in heaven. So 
near and tender is the care of God, that he alone 
deserves the name of Father. 

And yet we limit the doctrine, so as almost to 
deny it. We are ready, as was the pagan world, to 
refer a few important events in the lives of men or 
nations to a Providence ; but the rest of human life 
is as if it were spent away from the care and out of 
the sight of God. But this is not Christ's doctrine. 
His doctrine is that the providence of God is with 
us like the sunshine, which all the day, whether we 
heed it or not, is around us, which shines across our 
paths, and into our windows, and cannot be shut out 
but by some voluntary act of our own. The care of 
Providence is not anything exceptional, but the rule, 
a beneficent and helping presence which is with man 
from the cradle to the grave. Providence is not 
another name for the sum of the laws of nature, but 
the laws of nature constitute the method of Provi- 
dence. One speculative objection often heard to this 
12 



134 



PROVIDENCE. 



doctrine is, that it is inconsistent with that moral free- 
dom which God, above all things, would protect and 
preserve to man. But if one will consider, I think 
he will perceive that it is not only not inconsistent 
with man's freedom, but that, in the highest sense, 
it promotes it, — promotes it by the strength which 
it gives to those qualities of the soul which make men 
really free. It is like the atmosphere, which, while 
pressing on all sides, lays no fetter on the limbs, but 
all the time is breathing a freer and fresher vigor 
through the whole frame. Or rather it is like the in- 
fluence of a parent. The parent does not enslave a 
child, though all the time influencing its thoughts 
and motives. On the contrary, by the encourage- 
ment he gives, by the thoughts he suggests, by the 
efforts he aids, he only raises the child to a more self- 
subsistent, self-controlling freedom. The help of a 
parent trains up a child to help itself, to help it to 
be free and self-dependent. And so the help of God 
awakens that moral strength and gives that moral 
light which leads us to true freedom, — the service 
which, in the language of our prayer, is perfect free- 
dom. Providence does not interfere with the laws of 
the mind, but acts in harmony with those laws, to 
aid man in attaining the same end for which the 
laws were themselves established. 

There is one remarkable illustration of this general 
truth of a Providence found in the manner in which 
the seemingly disconnected, and often evil, deeds of 
men are overruled to work out unintended and un- 
expected good, far above the moral level of the deeds. 
In such cases, Providence does not destroy human 



PROVIDENCE. 



135 



freedom; men are left as they were created, moral 
agents, and yet the results of actions are by no means 
left within their choice. The law of Providence 
seems to be, necessity in results, freedom and moral 
responsibility in the actors. It is to this that philos- 
ophers refer, when they speak of a providence in his- 
tory ; — individuals free, the final result determined. 
It is as if the drops of water in a river had the power 
to revolve in lijtle eddies, each of its own choosing, 
while all are borne on unconsciously in the swelling 
flood towards the sea. The result pre-determined, 
the actors free. In this way, the ultimate good of 
the world is made to harmonize with the moral free- 
dom of individuals, even when they are most un- 
faithful. Thus the brethren of Joseph acted freely in 
seizing and selling him into Egypt. The suffering 
for their guilty act comes out in natural ways, and 
the whole history proceeds on in a natural order of 
events. And yet when sufficient time has elapsed 
for the full result to appear, their evil deeds are so 
overruled as to accomplish altogether unforeseen and 
unintended good. No lot could have seemed darker, 
than when he was sold as a slave to the wandering 
Midianites. Yet through this act he was finally en- 
abled to be the saviour of his family and the bene- 
factor of Egypt. It made the guilt of his brethren 
none the less, but Joseph saw in the course of events, 
and gratefully saw, the hand of an overruling Provi- 
dence. It was God, he says, who sent me before 
you to preserve life. 

This is an example of the order of Providence. 
Men are left free. So far as their intentions are 



136 



PROVIDENCE. 



concerned, there is no interference with their moral 
agency. But after they have acted, the results of 
their actions are so controlled as to produce good, 
in spite of the evil designs of the original actors, — 
their guilt none the less, Heaven's benefits only the 
greater. Thus does a Providence reveal itself in 
the whole history of the human race. No evil is 
allowed to be perpetual. Evils are made to con- 
sume themselves and their causes. » Evil becomes 
its own scourge and corrector, and in the end good 
comes forth, sunlike, triumphant over the clouds. 
Evil is suicidal, self-destructive. If it triumph to- 
day, it is only to destroy itself to-morrow. And 
more than this, we often see men in their follies and 
sins promoting the very end they intended to defeat. 
Thus, not only are the labors of the wicked brought 
to naught, but, like evil spirits subdued by a better 
power, they are compelled to become unwilling 
agents in serving the good cause which they abhor. 

But the real difficulty which interferes most with 
our faith in Providence arises from our low, im- 
poverished human conceptions of God. We think 
of him as if he were limited and restricted like one 
of us, — as if his greatness consisted in doing what 
is great to us, and avoiding what is common. We 
forget that beings who were not too insignificant to 
be created by him, are probably not too insignificant 
for his care. There is a single phrase often on our 
lips, which, if our minds were fully possessed of its 
meaning, would make every doubt of a Providence 
seem absurd. We call God the omniscient and 
omnipresent Father ; do these words describe the 



PROVIDENCE. 



137 



truth ? Is that being who created us, who uphold- 
eth all things, near us ? Is it true that in Him we 
live and move and have our being ? Is he a Father 
who careth for our welfare ? Does he know our 
weakness and our wants ? Is he nearer than our 
dearest friends ? And of all beings in the universe, 
is he the only one in regard to whom it is supersti- 
tion to look for aid? The passing stranger enters 
your dwelling ; your friend enters into the chambers 
of your mind, gives a new direction to your thoughts, 
confirms your faltering purposes, breathes courage 
and strength into your soul. Are those doors which 
are open to all else closed only to the presence of 
the Father of our spirits ? Rather will I believe the 
most unreasoning superstition of a trusting heart, 
than this earthly notion which shuts out God from 
the human soul! But it is no superstition, — it is 
the great doctrine of Christ and Christianity! 

By word and by example, our Saviour taught us 
to look to God for present help, — yes, for help to 
God ! Not that he will aid us in the way that we 
wish and pray; but he teaches us to look to God, 
with the certainty that aid and light, such as are 
needed, are never withheld from those who are pre- 
pared to receive them. And that which our Sav- 
iour teaches is confirmed by the testimony of our 
own hearts. There is this peculiarity about a be- 
lief in a Providence. It is at discord only with our 
lower and worldly and more earthly thoughts. It is 
in harmony with our highest and best and purest 
feelings. When the affections are most tender and 
pure, when our consciences are most alive, when we 
12* 



138 



PROVIDENCE. 



most earnestly and truly desire to live righteous and 
good and worthy lives, — then how natural, how 
easy, to look up ! The idea of a God, who loveth 
and helpeth his creatures in their weakness, comes 
to us as a self-evident truth, and to doubt it seems 
a violation of the highest instincts of our nature. 

But we have little need of arguments to prove the 
reality of a Providence. It is only necessary for 
us to live. Youth may be sceptical. While health 
and animal spirits and success continue, and all 
things go smoothly, we are in danger of feeling so 
self-sufficient that we shall be heedless of the Power 
above us. Add but a few more years to life, — let 
man find out by experience that his wisdom is folly, 
and how unwise his choice would often be, in the 
plainest cases even, — then let him remember how 
he has been protected and restrained and guarded 
and supported from childhood up, even when he 
was unaware of danger or weakness, — how what 
he has called trials, when God and not his own 
sins sent them, have been for his good, — sickness 
often better than health, the season of disappointed 
hopes better than the season of success, — he wants 
no argument, — his whole past life is luminous with 
providential care. 

Still the subject may be embarrassed by difficul- 
ties. Yet there is one point, and it is the only one 
about which we need this assurance, respecting 
which there is no room left for doubt. The all- 
important practical question is, not whether the 
common sorrows of life may not have a good pur- 
pose, but whether Providence is on the side of right. 



PROVIDENCE. 



139 



Is there such a moral government of the world that 
it is always, whatever the present loss or suffering, 
safe and well to do right. May this man, who is 
tempted by earthly prizes, threatened by penalties, 
before whom the path of rectitude seems filled with 
evil, — may he be certain that that path, though there 
seems this lion in the way, is the safe one, and that 
it leads with certainty to light and peace ? And the 
instincts of conscience, and the experience of life, 
and the word of revelation, declare that God is on 
the side of rectitude, — - that it is better to give the 
right hand than knowingly and wilfully to sin, — 
that he who giveth his life for a righteous cause 
enters into the everlasting life. 

Of all the blessings which God grants, there is 
none greater than the ability to rely with a confi- 
dent assurance on Him. I will not speak of this 
trust as a duty. When we consider what we are, 
how limited in knowledge and in power, and what 
evil consequences must follow a wrong course, it is 
our highest privilege, and should be the subject of 
our joy and daily thanksgiving, that we are not left 
to ourselves, — that there is One over us wiser than 
we, who gives laws to our lives and help to our 
hearts, who appoints the general order of our lot, 
and without whose notice not a sparrow falls to 
the ground. So far as the most important circum- 
stances of life are concerned, what are we, that we 
should dare, except in subjection to God's will, to 
choose for ourselves. Have not our best concerted 
schemes failed us often enough to teach us humility ? 
Who will dare to say that health is better for him 



140 



PROVIDENCE!. 



than sickness, or joy than sorrow, or worldly success 
than failure ? It is a blessed boon, without which 
all else would lose the character of a blessing, to 
know that in this order of things, which includes 
the trial as well as the success, we may see a 
Providence. Nor is it needful for us to understand 
the reason of every appointment. For how stands 
the case ? I do not mean to say that there is a per- 
petual and arbitrary interference ; but there is an 
order of things, established and controlled by Provi- 
dence, having in view the welfare of man. Under 
that providential order, from infancy I have been 
taken care of. Unless I have turned aside the 
blessed purpose of Providence by my sins, I cannot 
look back on anything of His appointment, where 
there has been time to see the results, but I can now 
see that it was ordered by wisdom and goodness. 
What at the time were the greatest griefs and 
calamities, have very likely proved the chief bless- 
ings, — a dark archway leading into a lighted tem- 
ple. No parent gives such daily and hourly proofs 
of love and care to a child, as God does to man. 
To doubt this beneficent care is to doubt the light 
of the sun. And now I come to duties hard to be 
done, or trials hard to be borne. I do not see the 
reason. "What shall I do? Wait unsatisfied and 
untrusting till all is explained ? Perhaps my hmited 
faculties forbid this. At any rate, what room for 
trust if it were ? If it were shown and proved that to 
perform a painful duty or to bear a hard trial was 
for my immediate worldly interest, and I should do 
it only because I saw this, whatever else it might be, 



PROVIDENCE. 



141 



there would be no trust in God. This is but a sort 
of atheism which trusts God just as far as he makes 
a particular course appear profitable, and no farther. 
May Heaven grant us a different state of mind, — 
grant us that state which shall cause us to say, If 
God clearly appoint or command anything, it is 
well; whether we understand the reasons of it or 
not, it is sufficient if he appoints it ; — a heart that 
seeks God's will and bows with filial submission to 
it because it is his will. 

Were a being of a higher sphere, uninformed re- 
specting the character of man, to look down upon 
the earth, and to behold these creatures of a day in 
their weakness and frailty and sorrow, knowing 
that they were permitted to look to the Almighty 
One for help and light, he would surely expect that 
all eyes and all hearts would be looking upward for 
Divine aid ! How would it appear to him, when he 
found them cavilling and questioning, as if the doc- 
trine of a Providence were a mere matter of unim- 
portant speculation, — ready to admit it perhaps, but 
hesitatingly, and only to forget it ! Or worse than 
this, allowing their sins to rise, a thick mist, between 
them and heaven, and shutting out the very thought 
of God. What monstrous insensibility and ingrati- 
tnde ! Man permitted to be a child of God, and 
hesitating about it ! What a mockery would seem 
to him that philosophy, and what worse than mock- 
ery those sins, which separate the human soul from 
God! We look into the heavens and study the 
courses of the stars, — ■ O that the higher light 
which surrounds Him who is above the stars might 



142 



PROVIDENCE. 



break on our blinded hearts ! While we pause on 
this idea of providential care, and remember what 
we are, and what God is, it seems as if our very 
discussions of the subject had in them something 
profane. It seems as if the only thing left for us 
was to bow down in adoration, and to implore 
God's forgiveness for our unthankfnlness. What 
a terrible commentary upon our characters it is, 
that the goodness of God has so little power over 
us. In mortal peril, when the ship strikes on a tem- 
pest-beaten shore, when our children lie sick, and as 
we fear under the shadow of death, in the agonies 
of the mind, we cry out to the God that we had for- 
gotten for help. What are we to think of ourselves, 
that amidst his daily mercies, amidst the unbounded 
blessings of his love, our thoughts drop down to the 
ground, and the heavens are to us as empty as if 
they had been forsaken by the Almighty? May God 
in his mercy save us from this guilty insensibility, 
and, while he gives us all else, awaken our dull, 
lethargic hearts to some just sense of his paternal 
providence ! 

In the future there is much that is dark ; in the 
present, many despondencies and anxieties ; but 
in the greatest anxiety and doubt, there are always 
two truths on which we can fall back, and on which 
we can rest as on the solid rock. One relates to the 
practice. And it is this, that he who walks in the 
way of a Christian rectitude can never go astray. 
We live under the government of a righteous Being, 
and to do right must always be safe and well. No 
permanent evil can befall a good man. 



PROVIDENCE. 



143 



The other great elemental truth on which our 
peace and hope must rest is the power, wisdom, 
and goodness of God, However dark the world 
seems, I know it is governed by a Being of infinite 
wisdom and goodness. However much there is 
which is dark in my own lot, provided I walk in 
His way, I know that all must be well. I will trust 
in the wisdom and goodness of God. After all our 
theories and speculations and schemes of divinity, 
it is to this we must come at last if we are to 
have any hope. Nothing goes so deep or so high. 
Let us, therefore, in our weakness and blindness, be 
humbly thankful that we are able to trust to the 
wisdom and mercy and power of the Almighty 
Providence, — God, who sent his own Son to save 
the world, and who has taught us to look to him 
as a Father. 



SERMON X . 



ETERNAL LIFE. 

I AM COME THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE LIFE, AND THAT THET MIGHT 
HAVE IT MOKE ABUNDANTLY. — John X. 10. 

Here is stated the great end of our Saviour's 
mission. And yet one is tempted to say, that there 
is no important subject of which the Gospel treats 
to which a less heedful attention has been given, 
than its doctrine of Life. 

What was the life which Christ came to impart ? 
The common answer is, The assurance of existence 
beyond the grave. And certainly he gave this assur- 
ance ; and no words can overstate its importance. 
And yet, though of infinite moment, it was the least 
essential part of Christ's doctrine. 

The misapprehensions respecting this subject have 
arisen from neglecting the two entirely different 
senses in which the word is used, — the distinction 
between the life which Christ came to reveal and 
the life he came to awaken. He revealed an unend- 
ing life beyond the grave. But far more than this, 
and what he dwells on as the chief thing, he came 
to awaken the Eternal Life in the soul. The nature 



ETEKNAL LIFE. 



145 



of this life, the mode in which it is awakened, its 
relations of dependence on Christ and on God, con- 
stitute the great theme of the Gospel. Let us, con- 
fining ourselves to a single point, endeavor to gain 
some definite idea of what our Saviour taught re- 
specting its nature. 

In the first place, the life which Christ came to 
impart is a life which may be possessed and enjoyed 
in this world : " I am come that men may have life, 
and have it more abundantly." This describes some- 
thing very different from the mere revelation of a 
future state of existence. For his coming was in 
no sense the cause of man's existence. Again, he 
makes a distinction between the assurance of a fu- 
ture state, and the life which he imparts, when he 
says, " I am the resurrection and the life." The 
resurrection may be unto death, whereas he who 
believeth in me 'shall never die. " If a man keep my 
sayings, he shall never taste of death." The wicked 
share in the common resurrection to a future exist- 
ence. But they are never spoken of as possessing 
the eternal life. The murderer is to exist hereafter, 
but the words are, " No murderer hath eternal life 
abiding in him " ; thus showing, that by the phrase 
"eternal life " something very different is meant from 
simply eternal existence. In spite of that existence, 
" the wages of sin is death," but the gift of God is 
"eternal life." Or, among numberless other passages 
bearing on the same point, take the single decisive 
declaration, " He that heareth my word, and believ- 
eth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and 
shall not come into condemnation, but is passed 

13 



146 



ETERNAL LIFE. 



from death unto life." He already hath the ever- 
lasting life. The phrase is remarkable. And, in or- 
der to leave no room for misconception , he adds, 
" And is passed from death unto life." The death 
from which Christ came to deliver man is one which 
may thus fall on him while he lives in the body, and 
the life which he came to impart, the eternal life, the 
everlasting life, may begin this side the grave. 

The next question is, "What is this Life ? It is 
more than the continued beating of the pulses in 
these mortal bodies. In the Gospel sense of the 
words, to be carnally-minded is death. He who is 
drenched in the defilement of the senses and the 
•passions is dead while he lives, but to be spiritually- 
minded is life. A man's life consisteth not in the 
things which he possesseth. He may be dexterous, 
far-sighted, and energetic, — may have gain and 
fame and power, and yet no spark of that life of 
which Christ speaks may glimmer within the ashes. 
Nay, a man in saving his mortal life may be losing 
the life which Christ would give. To convert a sin- 
ner is to save a soul from death ; that is, the state of 
life is the opposite from that state of death from 
which the sinner is converted. The life of Jesus is 
to be made manifest in our mortal flesh. In Christ 
was life, and he that hath the Son hath life, that is, 
he who shares in the spirit of Jesus shares in the 
life of Jesus. " We know that we have passed from 
death unto life, because we love the brethren." " He 
that loveth not, abideth in death." He in whom 
those affections are awakened which are classed un- 
der the word Love, already lives, — lives as God 



ETERNAL LIFE. 



147 



lives, who is himself Love. " The kingdom of heav- 
en is not meat and drink, but righteousness and 
peace and joy in the Holy Ghost," and these Christ 
would impart to man here and to-day. Thus the 
life which Christ would impart is the spiritual life, — 
the life of righteousness and faith and love, — the 
life of the beatitudes, — the life that was in Christ 
himself ; and this is the life that is eternal and ever- 
lasting. It begins here, and is a fountain of blessed- 
ness within the soul for ever. All else is death while 
it seems to be alive. The sinner, in his trespasses 
and sins, is dead. Only the awakened and righteous 
soul lives. Only a divine life deserves the name of 
life. In the original, the word Life and the name 
of the Supreme Being are derived from the same 
root. God lives. In him is the essential life. And 
it is only as the human soul is brought into harmony 
with him, as, to use the phrase of an elder theology, 
there is the life of God in the soul of man, that he 
is brought into the sphere of the eternal life. 

The Gospel idea seems to be, that there are spheres 
of life, — sphere within sphere, — each more interior 
sphere more sacred than the preceding. First and 
most outward is the life of the senses, into which 
man is ushered at birth ; — a precious life, rich in 
pleasurable sensations, and having for its abiding- 
place a fair world, its skies lighted with golden fires, 
its floor fresh and beautiful with the changing sea- 
sons, and all made tributary to its wants or enjoy- 
ments ; — a precious life, but temporary, and disap- 
pearing as the senses themselves moulder into dust. 
This has no immortality. We see its beginning and 



148 



ETERNAL LIFE. 



end. Within this — a more interior sphere — is the 
life of the intellect, of thought, of memory, imagina- 
tion, reason, — a nobler life than that of the senses, 
one to which the senses minister. But Christ did 
not come to be the awaken er of the intellect. With- 
in the intellect — an interior sphere — is the moral 
being, Love, Hope, a righteous will, holy aspirations, 
the principles and affections which raise man above 
the instinctive animal life, which constitute him a 
moral being, and make him capable of sharing in 
the happiness of all moral beings in the universe. 
This is the sacred and immortal part of man. 

Now, because a man's senses are alive, and his 
intellect alive, it does not follow that these spiritual 
faculties are alive. A man may have no faith, no 
trust in man or God, no love of right or truth. In 
that case the soul, so far as its true life is concerned, 
is like a seed which dies in the ground, and all the 
life of the intellect and of the senses above it is 
but the verdure which hides its grave. Or, after be- 
ing awakened, it may be perverted and corrupted, 
and thus in a manner be killed in the man. As 
when a generous youth sinks into a selfish manhood, 
or a pure youth into a corrupt manhood. In such 
cases the soul just begins to live, and then its vital 
action is destroyed, and we say of it, properly, that 
the soul is dead, just as we say that the body is 
dead, when its special functions come to an end. 

And this is the true death. One of the saddest 
things in human history is the heedlessness of man 
to that which constitutes his true life. We invert 
the order of things, and dwell in superficial shows, 



ETERNAL LIFE. 



149 



and forget the substance. The house where a man 
lies dying is overshadowed with gloom. The stran- 
ger passes by it with sobered thoughts. "Within, 
voices are hushed, and feet move noiselessly, and 
dear ones collect around the bedside, and prayers 
will utter themselves in the heart, and tears fall that 
cannot be choked down. The very air seems full of 
a strange shadow. An invisible presence has en- 
tered, against which, when the hour comes, no door 
is shut. And as the murky darkness gathers closer 
around the failing lamp of life, it seems as if the 
light of the world were going out. This death, the 
death of the body, the death of the soul's organs, — 
death, which may be only a separation briefer than a 
voyage or a journey, — death, which is but a mere 
symbol of the soul's death, — weighs down all who 
witness it with fear and awe. The visible parting 
from this warm, sunshiny life, the mysterious shad- 
ows, the loosening of the hold on the gains and 
pleasures of the earth, and the opening eternity, sub- 
due the most frivolous. So, too, when disease strikes 
the intellect, and memory falters, and the imagina- 
tion droops, and the judgment is enfeebled, it is a 
mournful spectacle. How many millions have said, 
Let me die in the body, before this death begins to 
creep over the mind. 

What, then, should be our feeling at witnessing 
the decay, the paralysis, the death, of that which is 
most essentially the man, — that which raises him 
above the animal, and gives him a connection with 
the spiritual world ? When a growing perversity or 
selfishness or malignity supplants the affections, — 

13* 



150 



ETERNAL LIFE. 



when corrupt habits deaden the purity of thought, — 
when woiidliness enslaves a man to the earth which 
he must soon leave, — when faith in God, and the 
love of what God loves, and the filial trust, die out, 
— to the eye of reason, what a death is this ! Over 
this death-bed of the soul, this death in the midst of 
life, this spectacle, under the open heavens, of what 
gives to man the hope of immortality sinking into 
lethargy and death, — over this death the angels 
weep. This is the defeat of existence. The terrible 
nature of this death dawned on the wisest, even be- 
fore the light of Christianity. The life of the sen- 
sualist, to Socrates, seemed a protracted dying ; and, 
observing how the noblest powers were extinguished, 
he said, " Perhaps we are now dead, and the body is 
a sepulchre in which the soul is buried."' And it 
was with a profound sense of the supreme worth of 
the spiritual life, that he uttered the remarkable 
prayer, " O thou beloved universal Power, and ye 
other divinities, grant that I may become beautiful 
within, and that whatever externals I may possess 
may be all in harmony with my spiritual being. 
May I regard the wise alone as rich, and have only 
so much of gold as is consistent with virtue." 

On the other hand, how impoverished are our con- 
ceptions of the true life of man ! What a world 
were this, did all men train themselves to that ardor 
and love of virtue, and discipline their children as 
carefully for its attainment, as they train their facul- 
ties for the attainment of the transient prizes of the 
day ! What a fearful thought it is, that a large part 
of the intended, as well as unconscious, discipline of 



ETERNAL LIFE* 



151 



the young, is of a kind mainly to stimulate a crav- 
ing for a mere worldly success, which can scarcely 
be gained before a cold blast out of the grave 
sweeps over the blooming triumph, and withers and 
blights it all ! What germs of excellence, what ca- 
pacities for a nobler existence, lie dormant or dead 
in every soul ! The world preserves in the sanctuary 
of the memory the men who, from time to time, 
have exhibited a little of this spiritual life, — heroic 
men, who have sacrificed what the world holds dear, 
to their country, — benevolent men, who have coined 
their pleasures and their prosperities into help for 
the miserable, — martyrs, that have loved truth 
more than they feared death, — devout men, who 
have lived for God's approval. All the heroism of 
the world abides in such souls, and all the higher 
poetry is but a celebration of the manifestations of 
this inner life. But one^perfect example of it has 
been given, and it was seen in Him in whom dwelt 
the eternal life. And yet the capacity for it, to a 
greater or less extent, is in every human being. 
That desire which we have for worldly success 
might have been a desire for spiritual excellence. 
Our anxiety for man's applause might have been an 
anxiety for God's approvaT. We honor this higher 
life in history, we give it our admiration and our 
words of praise ; but they are barren words of hom- 
age, while our sacrifices are laid on other altars. 

Now it was to redeem man from this death of the 
soul, and to awaken its higher life, that Christ came. 
The purpose of his divine mission was not to raise 
the perished body out of its tomb, not to train the 



152 



ETERNAL LIFE. 



intellect, but to quicken the soul and awaken within 
it the true and immortal life. His coming is in vain 
for us, except so far as that life is awakened. Thus, 
if you will observe, there is not an assurance of for- 
giveness, not a promise of heaven, which is not in 
some way connected with the possession of the spir- 
itual life. " I have no pleasure at all in the death of 
him that dieth, saith the Lord God. "Wherefore turn 
from your sins and live." What is the very idea 
which is given of heaven ? It is a world in which 
the love of God is the all-pervading element. And 
what is heaven to one who loves everything on earth 
except righteousness and truth, and cares for noth- 
ing in heaven except for its blessedness, which the 
whole habit of his soul forbids him to enjoy. Heav- 
en is not a mere escape from a material hell. The 
outward heaven can be nothing to any one, until the 
elements of heavenly life are awakened within the 
soul. As well place the blind in a world of light. 
It is the soul that enjoys heaven, and it must be a 
living, and not a dead soul. And the life of the soul 
is in the love of truth and good, as the life of the 
body is in the healthful pulses of the blood. The 
heaven promised is a heaven which consists in the 
exercise of heavenly affections and principles. It is 
only as we love justice and truth, as we love man 
and God, that the word Heaven can have any mean- 
ing to us. And it was to awaken this heavenly life 
within the human soul, and in this way to conduct 
it to an unending blessedness, that Christ came. 

What spectacle on earth so fair as that of one who 
possesses this life ! You have seen the aged, whose 



ETERNAL LIFE. 



153 



hearts expanded with their years into even wider 
and more unselfish affections, — whose passions 
seemed to have been filtered away in life's disci- 
pline, — over whom the floods of trial had swept 
only to leave their richness behind, — who had passed 
through struggle into peace, — whose serene virtues, 
as the sun makes bright whatever it shines on, in- 
spired all around with a higher justice and human- 
ity, — whose hopeful faith loved to make excursions 
into that world which they approached, — who lived 
in an atmosphere of beneficent, trusting, and devout 
thought, — going down that valley, often so dark, 
but not dark to them, because there shone into it 
from above a heavenly light, — and here was life. 
The body might be dying, but the breaking up of 
the senses only seemed to reveal more and more the 
soul's light. I have seen such persons die, and laid 
in the grave, and yet in a few days the remembrance 
of that event seemed gone from the mind. I could 
never think of them except as alive. It seemed as 
if you might meet them at every turn, so entirely 
did the spiritual life in them overtop and embrace in 
its radiance, and keep out of view, all the circum- 
stances of mortality. This is life. And more of it 
is often seen in the patience and submission and 
cheerful trust of those who can only wait God's will, 
than in those who with their grasping and struggling 
energies shake the world. The true life is not in 
length of days, — that is but an inferior life which 
beats in the throbbing blood and flames in the whirl 
and tempest of the passions. And so the poet 
sings : — 



154 



ETERNAL LIFE. 



" We live in deeds, not years 5 in thoughts, not breaths j 
In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives 
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. 
And he whose heart beats quickest lives the longest, — 
Lives in an hour more than in years do some 
Whose fat blood sleeps as it slips along the veins. 
Life is but a means unto an end ; that end, 
Beginning, mean, and end to all things, God ! " 

Spiritual death is in other places of the Scriptures 
described as the loss of the soul. And so fearful is 
this, that we are taught that the gain of the world 
is ruin, if gained with the loss of the soul. But 
what is the loss of the soul ? Not any external 
penalty. More terrible than all the woes which the 
imagination has pictured as impending over a guilty 
life is the simplest description of what the Saviour 
means. To lose the soul, is to lose out of one's be- 
ing the pure affections, and the love of truth and 
right. It is to lose the love of goodness, and pious 
trust, and the heavenly dower of immortal hope. 
Multitudes walk the earth with souls already lost. 
He that has lost his virtuous purposes, holy aspira- 
tions, devout hopes, whose soul has abdicated its 
high seat and become subject to the world, like the 
sapless and verdureless tree, is already struck with 
death. It bears no fruit, and waits only to be cut 
down and cast into the fire. 

Such are the life and death of which the Gospel 
treats. It is a life and a death whose processes are 
going on within the soul this day. We are all liv- 
ing a double life. The morning, as it breaks over 
the hills, rouses the tribes of men to their daily allot- 
ment of toil and pleasure and sorrow. But all this 



ETERNAL LIFE. 



155 



comes to an end. The great procession of mortality- 
passes on, and its tumult dies away, and its glory 
goes down into the grave. But there is that which 
does not come to an end. Under all these labors, 
hindered or helped by them, the soul is working out 
its destiny. There are those who for earthly success 
are sacrificing the generous heart of youth, — who 
for the gold they receive in one hand are giving with 
the other their integrity, their disinterested affections, 
their peace of mind, and their hope of heaven, — who 
barter away the treasures of friendship, the calm 
conscience, and honor, and faith, and truth, and jus- 
tice, sacrificing them all to their pride, their resent- 
ments, their envy, their sordid cravings, — in win- 
ing the outward good, fostering the interior death. 
There are those who seem to triumph over the world, 
who spend their day in rearing a mausoleum on 
which must be written, " Beneath this rests one who 
gained the world at the cost of the soul." And 
there are those, too, whom joy makes more grateful, 
and sorrow more trusting, and temptation more faith- 
ful, and trial more strong, whose souls have pros- 
pered under every change of fortune, and who, fol- 
lowing the Saviour with meek and obedient hearts, 
with " every step towards their graves have been 
making progress toward the eternal life. 

In these remarks I have spoken not of the method 
of attaining the spiritual life, but of its nature. At 
first it might seem a superfluous task. Who doubts, 
it is said, that this is the true and eternal life ? On 
the other hand, one might almost reply by asking, 
Who believes it ? It is just at this point that we 



156 



ETERNAL LIFE. 



find the most fatal form of scepticism, — most fatal 
because it goes to the foundations of moral distinc- 
tions. Few doubt the existence of God. We may 
believe also, that, for some arbitrary reason, we must 
obey God in order to secure his acceptance. But 
how deep in our hearts is the conviction, that in the 
love of God itself, in a filial trust, in the sentiment, 
is the highest life of the soul? We honor Christ 
in traditional words and solemn forms of homage. 
We say that his life was perfect. But how far have 
we the settled conviction, that the highest and holi- 
est, most divine, and most desirable of all things on 
earth, are precisely those spiritual qualities which 
were revealed in him to mortal eyes ? Or to take 
single elements of the divine life. We understand 
how men may love Mammon, may feed on human 
applause and admiration, — have we the same con- 
scious sense, that we may have precisely the same 
self-devoted love of truth and right ? We honor the 
just man ; but our prevailing language implies that 
justice, honesty, truth, are little more than instru- 
ments to some end beyond themselves, — not as if 
they were in themselves the supreme good. How 
little meaning have the Saviour's words, " Blessed 
are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness." 
Not they who act justly and righteously as a matter 
of expediency, but they who love it for its perceived, 
intrinsic excellence, — love it as the artist loves what 
is beautiful, — love it as the sensualist loves his pleas- 
ures, — hunger and thirst for it, and must have its 
presence within them, or die. Instead of our having 
any just sense of the Gospel doctrine of life, even the 



ETERNAL LIFE. 



157 



prevailing religious creeds of the world fix the atten- 
tion on a life in a manner external to the soul, a 
mere continued existence, and a bliss showered on 
it from without. They treat of salvation ; but often 
it seems as if it were a salvation of man in his sins, 
rather than from his sins. As if, were it not for 
future perdition, the attempt to attain the virtues of 
the Gospel were an unbearable cross. How little 
do they give the impression, that in these very spirit- 
ual excellences, in this love of them, and in their ex- 
ercise, in their self-controlling and inspiring presence, 
is itself the eternal life ! That Christ came to impart 
and awaken this life, and that his death becomes 
our life only as it touches our hearts and awakens 
in them a spirit like his own, — that then, and then 
only, are we sharers in the life of Christ, — is this 
believed ? "Were it believed with anything like the 
intelligent sincerity with which men believe in the 
worth of intellectual education, of worldly success, 
or of good repute among men, the millennium would 
have come. And yet, if there be any meaning in 
Christ's words, the first step in religion is the per- 
ception of the nature of this spiritual life, — the life 
described in the Bible as that of faith, — a regener- 
ate and sanctified life. 

The faith that we need is not this or that opinion 
about some point of sectarian controversy, a wretched 
heirloom of the Dark Ages come down to torment 
the world after its time, but that the same spiritual 
life of faith, affection, and trust which was in Jesus 
Christ is the supreme good of the soul. Except as 
we have this conviction, and live by it, the very pur- 



158 



ETERNAL LIFE. 



pose of our existence on earth is defeated. If we 
are growing more earthly, the nearer the time comes 
for leaving the earth, — if our affections are set more 
and more on things below, as the hand grows feebler 
that grasps them, — if that spiritual life of which all 
of us have the elements at least within us in child- 
hood, be deteriorating, decaying, and dying out, — 
then the sooner dissolution comes, fearful though it 
be, the happier for the man who is turning the gift of 
life into the means of a more fearful death. 

In a word, to sum up what has been said, — the 
essential characteristic of the eternal life in the soul 
is the love of truth and good, and thus of God who 
is the true and good, and of Christ in whom God is 
manifest. This is the life of the angels which inspires 
them in their ministries. It is the heavenly life. It 
is the bond which unites all the hierarchies of the 
celestial world. He who hath it has affinities with 
all the pursuits and pleasures of that sacred nature. 
The pomps and passions of earth turn back from the 
closed portals of heaven. No bribes gain admission 
there. No forms or shows avail. But he who hath 
in him the eternal life, though a beggar naked and 
maimed and blind, before him heaven's gates open 
of themselves. He is no stranger there, for the life 
that is in him finds there its true sphere and com- 
panionship. 



SERMON XI. 



WATCHING WITH CHRIST. 

AND HE COMETH UNTO THE DISCIPLES AND FINDETH THEM ASLEEP, 
AND SAITH UNTO PETER, WHAT, COULD YE NOT WATCH WITH 
ME ONE HOUR ? WATCH, AND PRAT, THAT TE ENTER NOT INTO 

temptation. — Matthew xxvi. 40,41. 

The world was covered with darkness and sunk 
in slumber. But there was one place, then unheeded, 
where there was a watching and a conflict, on which 
hung the destinies of the human race. Under the 
trees of Gethsemane, dripping with dews, under the 
chill, insensible heavens, in prayer and with God, the 
Saviour watched. As the last scene in his great sac- 
rifice approached, he prepared himself for it, not by 
steeling himself into insensibility, not by any new 
determination of will, but by prayer, by communion 
with God, and by submission to his will. Thus did 
the Saviour watch against the trials and the agonies 
of the coming day. And though his disciples did 
not watch with him, he warns them, thus, to watch 
for themselves, — for they too were to encounter the 
power of an evil world, — Watch and pray, lest ye 
enter into temptation. To watch with Christ, and to 



160 



WATCHING WITH CHRIST. 



watch as he watched, was to strengthen the soul to 
meet approaching trial, by communion with God. 

The event recorded in the text occurred immedi- 
ately after the Last Supper. Our Saviour had just 
parted from the twelve disciples, a. sadder parting 
than they then knew, and, attended by three of their 
number, had ' come to the garden of Gethsemane. 
The disciples seem to have been, as it were, in a 
dream. They saw how profoundly the Saviour was 
moved, but they could understand neither the reason 
nor the extent of his sadness. Even the three who 
followed him to the garden, worn and exhausted, dur- 
ing the bitter hours of his anguish at length sunk 
down upon the ground in slumber a unconscious of 
the dread events which were so soon to burst upon 
them. As we look at them, we seem to be revealed 
to ourselves. Not they alone were unaware and 
slumbering on the threshold of solemn and unforeseen 
events. With us, the turning-points of our destiny 
come as unexpectedly as to them. The brightest 
morning, rising without a cloud, may go down in 
sickness, sorrow, sin, death. We are like those who 
lie down in the sides of the ship, and who, as they 
listen, hear, with only a frail partition between, the 
vast devouring surges, which heave, and rush, and 
welter, and moan beneath the keel. The sheltered 
and protected nooks of life where we dwell, border 
upon unseen and mysterious destinies ; shut out by 
the thinnest veil, life and death, and blessed angels, 
and ministers of doom are close upon us. But though 
sometimes we seem to hear the murmur that is in 
the conscious air, though strange premonitions come 



WATCHING WITH CHRIST. 



161 



to us, we understand them not, we heed them not, but 
pitch our tents in the infinite surrounding mystery, 
and, amidst the awakened universe, sink into sleep. 

Sink into sleep! In a world full of peril, how 
often do these words describe our real condition. 
Entering step by step into new trials, as we traverse 
the wilderness of life, we at length grow weary, and 
cast aside our watchfulness, and plunge heedlessly 
into the ambushed danger. On the brink of temp- 
tation, we lie down to sleep, and, what is worse, the 
moral sleep into which we fall is of a kind which 
tempts the invasion of evil, and prepares us to be 
its victims. 

There are times when all good angels seem to de- 
sert you; your best purposes and dispositions seem 
to lose their hold, and to slip feebly out of the mind; 
the intellect may be active, the passions awake, but 
lethargy and sleep have crept over the best faculties 
of the soul. Such seasons are the seasons of peril. 
Then, while you heed it not, and because you heed 
it not, the powers of the lower world are creep- 
ing up into the throne of the mind. You are not 
only unconscious of the approaching danger, but be- 
cause of that unconsciousness are prepared to be 
overwhelmed by it. O that then the voice which 
wakes the dead might arouse us to watchfulness! 
At other times, when fear and penitence move the 
heart, when conscience is alive, and the thought of 
God is present, you may be safe. All holy beings 
seem to keep watch with you, and for you. But in 
these hours, most dark because you are unconscious 
of the darkness, when conscience sinks into a feeble 

14* 



162 



WATCHING WITH CHRIST. 



whisper, and the idea of God floats off into the dis- 
tance, and you are left alone, as if for the very trial 
of your strength, then must you stand sentinel over 
yourself. Though you know not how or whence, 
then danger is approaching. It is the lull before the 
storm. "When there is but one watchman upon the 
wall, while already the beleaguering hosts approach 
under cover of the darkness, and then muffled tram- 
plings begin to rise into the air, if the solitary watch- 
man sleep, all is lost. You are then in all the more 
danger, because, except interruptedly, it hardly occurs 
to you that you are not safe ; but be sure that in the 
seasons when your better thoughts and purposes 
grow sluggish, then the darker angels that pass above 
your slumber are weighing your fate in uneven bal- 
ances. In such states the words of Christ come to 
us, " Could ye not watch with me one hour ? In the 
season of your temptation, can you not rouse your- 
self from your lethargy, and remember me and re- 
member God? O thou that sleepest, and to whose 
ear in this moral sleep all evil whisperings come, 
awake, and for one hour watch with me ! " 

There is an Oriental story of a contest between 
two spirits, one of the upper and the other of the 
lower world. So long as the conflict was main- 
tained in the air, the evil genius lost his strength, and 
was easily mastered; but as soon as, in the various 
fortunes of the fight, he touched the earth, his strength 
returned, he rose to a gigantic size, and the heavens 
grew dark with his power. It is so with us in our 
conflict with evil. We do not long resist temp- 
tation, when we cany on the conflict on its own 



WATCHING WITH CHRIST. 



163 



ground; our spasmodic efforts then soon yield to its 
persistent pressure. It is by rising to a higher level 
that we gain strength, while the temptation is weak- 
ened. It is by living on this higher plane of thought, 
and moral purpose, that we are prepared to encoun- 
ter temptation. In the season when you are led 
astray, had you been watching with Christ, had your 
mind been occupied by better thoughts and purposes, 
the temptation would hardly have risen up to that 
higher region, to assail you. While the vivid ap- 
prehension of God's presence is in the mind, we are 
not likely to yield to the sin. Who is there, that 
can consciously and deliberately step over that one 
thought into a sin ? Before we commit the wrong, 
that thought is put aside, and we descend to the 
lower level, where the temptation has its home, its 
associations, and its strength. 

It is one of the great blessings of Christianity, that 
it has filled this sphere of human life with higher 
moral thoughts, has surrounded us by this presence 
of truth, has placed stars in the otherwise darkened 
firmament. Over the abyss of human passion and 
ignorance move not shapes of evil alone, but holy 
beings, and Christ, and God, — a new class of ideas, 
into which we may rise by faith, and which consti- 
tute, as it were, a heavenly climate and sky for the 
mind. Our power to resist temptation depends 
mainly, not on mere strength of will, but on the hab- 
it of dwelling amidst these higher truths and obey- 
ing them. The closer the connection of our minds 
with these ideas, the more intimate our companion- 
ship with them, the greater our moral power. The 



164 



WATCHING WITH CHRIST. 



mind receives light and strength from a higher source, 
The powers of evil may wait for us below, but they 
dare not ascend into this holy mountain. And so 
long as we retain this better spirit, temptation has 
but little power. It is not the soul's privilege only, 
but the soul's safety, to have its conversation in 
heaven. 

" Could ye not watch with me one hour ? " The 
series of events with which these words are con- 
nected illustrates — what is of infinite moment to 
us — the manner in which Heaven regards the frail- 
ties and sins of men. Through the whole of this 
narrative of desertion by friends, and persecution 
unto death by enemies, there is not one bitter or 
denunciatory word, but only words of pity, forgive- 
ness, and encouragement, of compassion when his 
disciples failed, and of encouragement to their hesi- 
tating yet returning fidelity. 

It may be that in your conscious weakness you 
have lost hope, — that in your failures it has seemed 
as if you could no longer look for God's mercy or 
help ; and yet at that moment, could we but un- 
derstand it, — and what shall we say of ourselves 
when our minds are closed against this sublimest 
truth ? — heaven is looking down upon us with ten- 
der interest. The question there, with those who 
rejoice over every sinner that is saved, is not whether 
you have fallen, but whether you endeavor to rise 
again. God cares for everything that he has cre- 
ated ; but on the whole earth, nothing is so interest- 
ing to heaven as the fidelity of the soul, the fidelity 
of a weak heart and feeble will, endeavoring to over- 



"WATCHING WITH CHRIST. 



165 



come temptation. All the glory of earth is pale and 
faded beside the persevering struggles of such a soul. 
The pleasure of heaven lies not in the chronicling 
of human sins, but in encouraging and helping the 
feeble heart which sincerely endeavors to get the 
victory over its infirmities. 

" Could ye not watch with me one horn ? " These 
words show also the strong and tender desire with 
which he wished for their confidence and love and 
trust. He endeavored not only to unite his follow- 
ers with each other, but equally to himself. He 
desired their love, he wished them to serve him in 
love, and made this love the organizing principle of 
his Church. These words were not more for the 
Apostles than for us. The love of Christ reached 
not to them alone. The Gospel proceeds on the 
idea, that, though it may be an undefined, there is a 
real and personal relation between Christ and every 
believing heart. The electric, invisible thread of 
love reaching down from heaven, and encircling 
earth, connects all Christian souls with the Master. 
He is still present with them in the midst of their 
prayers, and still sends the Comforter to their hearts. 
He holds not merely a far-ofT, historical relation with 
succeeding ages, but a far nearer and more intimate 
one. Who doubts that he at this moment feels as 
deep an interest for those who now live upon the 
earth, as he did for those upon whom he looked, and 
over whom he wept, in Jerusalem ? Who doubts 
that he is at this moment regarding with a divine 
tenderness the course of those for whom he gave his 
life ? Surely I do not doubt it, nor do any of us. 



166 



WATCHING WITH CHRIST. 



And in a little time, when this brief pilgrimage is 
over, which one of us does not expect to behold Him 
who liveth in the heavens, who hath gone before to 
prepare a place for his followers ? Nay, the first 
being whom we behold, on entering the higher 
world, may be Him whose love was such that he 
gave himself for us. We trifle with ourselves, we 
who are here but for a day, when we think of Christ 
as only living in the past, and not much more living 
now, — as one to be sought in the past, and not 
much more to be looked forward to in the future. 
He still speaks to us. And when in our worldliness 
we forget him, and suffer ourselves to become in- 
sensible to what he has been and is to us, and not 
only insensible, but by our sins make what he has 
done in vain, — when we thus fall asleep under the 
shadow of his sufferings, surely it is with a most 
tender meaning that the words come to us, " Could 
ye not watch with me one hour ? " 

He beholds you in your afflictions. The night is 
dark around you, and your soul heavy with unut- 
tered sorrows ; and to you the words are spoken : 
" Come and watch one hour with me. Come, and, 
with me, put your trust in the Almighty Providence. 
Come and watch with me, and I will show you, 
rising upon this darkness, the dawn of a brighter 
day." Yes, watch with him, and learn how to bear 
grief and loneliness and pain. Learn that lesson 
of divine submission, which, in the act t>f surrender- 
ing one's own will to God, is visited and strength- 
ened by the angels of his mercy. To you the words 
are said, " Come unto me, all ye that are weary and 



WATCHING WITH CHRIST. 



167 



heavy laden, come and watch with me, and ye shall 
find rest." 

As he looks down, he beholds you in your hour of 
weakness and moral peril ; he beholds you in the 
place of temptation; he beholds your good purposes 
one by one taking flight and leaving you, while 
flocking like birds of ill omen, on dark wings, come 
down the powers of evil. At this moment, and thus 
far, you may be innocent, but another hour, and an- 
other step in this way, and the sin to which you are 
now only tempted will be a sin that is committed. 
Now you may look forward to it and abstain ; but 
go on, and soon you must look back and behold 
what can neither be effaced nor forgotten. What a 
mournful change in the freedom of your conscience, 
in the unembarrassed peace of hope and memory, 
may take place in that one hour ! Is it wonderful 
that He who came to save us should look down 
with compassionate interest on what may be the 
turning-point in the road of a human being's life, — 
the very crisis of your mortal fate ? To you the 
voice speaks, " Come and watch one hour with me." 

O frail and tempted man ! wert thou to leave the 
companionship of evil thoughts, and spend but one 
hour with the Saviour, the powers of evil should flee 
away, — the touch of his garment should give thee 
strength, and the viper of temptation drop from thy 
hand into the fire. Yes, here is the very method 
both of danger and safety. The conflict and the 
conquest are in the mind. We yield ourselves up to 
evil thoughts and suggestions, take counsel of them, 
listen, desirous of being convinced, to their sophis- 



168 



WATCHING- WITH CHRIST. 



tries, and then wonder that we become their victims. 
Our safety is not chiefly in strength of will, but in 
cleaving to a holier companionship, which shall 
arouse the better elements of the soul. Fly from 
the circle of evil suggestions which hem you round 
about, not to the hermitage or the cell, where they 
may still follow, but let the mind itself take refuge 
in the thought and the presence of Christ and of 
God. 

When the disciples were separated from their 
Master, as they thought, for ever, they at once grew 
weak and hopeless ; but one hour with him again, 
after his resurrection, restored their courage, and 
their faith in his overseeing love became henceforth 
their strength in life and death. Because, like them, 
we are weak, blessed above all hours are those in 
which we watch with the Master. Happy is it for 
us sometimes to escape from the struggling world to 
the contemplation of the works of God, and to gain 
calmness from the vision of their calm and eternal 
order. More blessed still, to rise above the creation 
to the Creator. 

Watch and pray ! The real perils of life are not 
in its bodily dangers or its worldly losses, nor in the 
guiltless sorrows which flesh is heir to, but in 
its temptations to evil. And who can tell how or 
whence he may be tempted an hour hence, — what 
new weaknesses within, what new exposures from 
without, an hour may reveal? We cannot fore- 
see them. We cannot commonly guard ourselves 
against special temptations as such. We must be 
prepared beforehand to meet emergencies, and our 



WATCHING WITH CHRIST. 



169 



safety lies in maintaining the soul in such a state, 
that it shall be prepared for whatever may come, — 
ready to resist and repel and rise above the varied 
temptations which, like successive breaking waves, 
we must encounter on the voyage of life. It is not 
given us to still the waves of the sea ; but to those 
who seek, strength is given to pass safely over them. 
The best source of safety is set forth in the words of 
Christ, " Watch with me " ; watch and pray lest ye 
enter into temptation. Watch the tendencies of 
your own heart ; and that you may watch, pray. 
That you may have the company of good thoughts, 
pray. That Heaven's help may guard you in earthly 
dangers, watch and pray. 



15 



SERMON XII. 



BE ALITIE S. 

BUT NOW I GO MY "WAT TO HIM THAT SENT ME ; AND NONE OF 
TOTJ ASKETH ME, WHITHER GOEST THOU % BUT BECAUSE I HAVE 
SAID THESE THINGS UNTO YOU, SORROW HATH FILLED YOUR 

heart. — John xvi. 5, 6. 

The morning lesson from the Gospel, and those 
which precede and follow it, show the extreme difficul- 
ty with which the Apostles of our Lord appreciated 
the spirituality of his religion. They expected that 
he would establish an earthly kingdom, and reign 
visibly over the subject world. When he seemed to 
speak of dying, sorrow filled their hearts. It was 
the defeat of all their expectations. Nevertheless, he 
says, it is expedient for you that I go away ; for if I 
go not away, the Comforter — immediately after 
described as the Spirit of Truth — will not come 
unto you. His death would break up their earthly 
conceptions. "With his death, their thoughts, faith, 
and hopes would follow him to the heaven to which 
he ascended, and his absence from them would 
make real to their minds the spiritual world where 
he would dwell. Doubtless, much more is suggested 
in the passage. But here was their great difficulty. 



REALITIES. 



171 



They needed to be emancipated from the tyranny of 
the senses, and to have their faith established that 
the hopes which they cherished, the heaven to which 
they looked, the interests of supreme value, belonged 
to them, not as creatures of the earth, but as the 
heirs of an immortal and spiritual life. In their case, 
the teachings, death, resurrection, and ascension of 
our Lord completely did away with their Jewish 
and earthly conceptions of man's destiny, and of the 
Messiah's kingdom ; but they awakened in their 
minds such an intense and vivid sense of the realities 
of the spiritual world, and such a sense of their be- 
ing the great realities of existence, that henceforth 
they lived by faith more than by sight, drew their 
motives and hopes from above, and were ready to 
die to this world because of their undoubting faith 
in another, and in him who had gone before them 
to its glories. With many modifications arising from 
difference of circumstances, the fundamental religious 
difficulty with us is the same as with them ; and our 
great want is faith in the reality and supreme value 
of spiritual interests. 

"What in this mortal life is real, and what imagi- 
nary, what shadow, and what substance ? The real 
difficulty which benumbs and paralyzes the influence 
of religion over the minds of men is commonly, I 
imagine, not a logical scepticism, nor the indiffer- 
ence which comes from an indisposition to heed its 
truths, but a vague feeling that it is unreal, a feeling 
of unreality. The evidences of Christianity, many 
would say, seem to me sufficient, but, after all, those 
interests of which it treats seem to me to have no 



172 



REALITIES. 



substantial reality. They are remote, in the region 
of shadows, and my feeling is, that they themselves 
are shadows and illusions. I say not that they are 
such, but so I feel. I enter into a church, and hear 
the words faith, and penitence, and forgiveness, and 
immortality, and men sleep under their monotonous 
repetition, while the words drift by in the air, a mere 
passing sound. I go into the street, and there, amidst 
its struggles and competitions, and the visible prizes 
of life, I am in the region of acknowledged and in- 
disputable realities. All here is intensely real. If 
we were honest with ourselves, should we not dis- 
miss from our minds these unrealities of the spiritual 
world, and plant our feet firmly on what we know 
is solid ground, and think only of this visible world, 
where we know that all is real, and that there is no 
illusion ? 

Thus the fundamental question of religion is a 
question of reality. Are these interests of religion 
substantial and real, or are they the mere fancies of 
a heated brain, the shadow of our emotions, and our 
enthusiasm, projected, a dim penumbra, into the in- 
finite void around us, and mistaken for something 
substantial and real ? 

1. In endeavoring to answer this question, the 
first consideration which presents itself is, that in 
this world even, independent of their bearing on 
religion, the most important realities are those which 
are unseen, and are essentially spiritual. In ordi- 
nary affairs, it is startling to think how that which 
is most real is that which is least seen, how it is the 
state of the soul which gives meaning and value to 



REALITIES. 



173 



the most common outward labors. I see before me 
a poor foreigner, ignorant, destitute, one of a thou- 
sand others like himself, toiling from day to day on 
some great public enterprise. The outward realities 
of his lot are that he is poor and very ignorant and 
very uninteresting, and that, through this monoto- 
nous toil with his hands, he is earning his daily bread. 
But suppose you could look into his mind, and 
should see that, while this toil goes on, his thoughts 
are not there chiefly, but in his home, with a sick 
child, over which he watched last night, and over 
which he will watch again to-night ; — suppose you 
see that he is planning how to deny himself, so that, 
with less food and more labor, he may purchase for 
his wife and children the comforts which they need ; 
or that in this wretched lot, tempted by the oppor- 
tunity of unlawful gain, unseen by all but God and 
his own conscience, he rejects the temptation, and 
silently keeps his rectitude and his penury ; — how at 
once is the whole aspect of the man changed ! You 
forget the coarse garments, and the mechanical toil, 
and think only of the man. The self-denial, the af- 
fections which prompt the labor, the rectitude of 
soul, — these are the great realities of this man's lot. 
They ray out from him, and hallow his toil, and 
dignify his condition. That which is most real about 
him is that which is transpiring in the invisible realm 
of his soul. 

Take this prosperous man. The world pours its 
treasures into his lap. For him to touch an enter- 
prise is to doom it to success. What was but sand 
to others, transforms itself for him into gold. Here 

15* 



174 



REALITIES. 



is something real, but there may be other realities 
invisible, which are greater. Suppose you open this 
man's mind, and find Kim sordid and timeserving, 
the prey of small passions, jealous and envious, his 
desires becoming more grasping as they are gratified, 
with no thought beyond himself; what are the real- 
ities of this man's lot ? Not his wealth. The sor- 
did soul makes the prosperity dust. Not his pleas- 
ures, for the selfish soul blights them all. Better be 
poor, and naked, and maimed, and blind, with that 
wealth of the soul which the poorest may have, than 
be as he is. The realities which shape this man's 
fate are spiritual realities. I do not say that the 
outward circumstances of penury and prosperity are 
not realities, but only that far greater and more in- 
tensely real are those spiritual qualities which grow 
up amid the helps and the influence of this outward 
discipline. Simply as a matter of substantial real- 
ity, who will doubt that a liberal, disinterested soul 
is worth more to a man than the whole wealth of 
California showered into his bosom without it ? 

When the Pilgrims landed on this coast, the out- 
ward realities were winter, and an unfriendly shore, 
and the inhospitable forest, and the thousand-fold 
anxieties of a forlorn exile. Their lot was a hard 
one ; but in its outward circumstances there was 
nothing so peculiar as to make it memorable. 
Thousands of vessels have sought shores as bleak 
and bristling with peril, for the simple purpose of 
gain, yet the world keeps no record of them. The 
realities which lighted up the track of their vessel 
across the deep, and which made the point and hour 



REALITIES. 



175 



of their landing a centre of the world's history, and 
the rock on which they first stood, and the bleak hill- 
side on which were their graves, places of pilgrim- 
age, were those which were invisible, — were spirit- 
ual, — were the high purposes, the heroic, chosen 
self-sacrifice of all visible to invisible realities, the 
devout consecration of themselves to God and great 
ends. 

May I venture to refer to one scene more ? When 
He who died for us all hung on the cross, well might 
the daughters of Jerusalem mourn over the visible 
agonies of that hour. But the spectacle of a cross 
was not a new thing. What were the great realities 
of that scene, — so great that they transformed the 
cross itself, and so lifted it up that it seems to us the 
point of meeting between earth and heaven ? Not 
simply physical pain certainly. It was the Divine 
self-sacrifice for a world heedless of the gift. It was 
the Divine forgiveness that went up with the last 
flutterings of the heart. It was God's love and mer- 
cy towards the guilty, manifested through that dread 
sacrifice. These spiritual realities made the scene 
and the hour divine. Not what was seen, but what 
was unseen, drew after the great Sufferer those who 
were ready to die for him, and have drawn to him 
ever since the reverential eyes of the world. 

Thus, even in this world, when we would come to 
what is most real, to the great realities of man's lot, 
we must penetrate into the realm of the invisible. 
The earth, and sky, and ships, and houses, and lands, 
are less real to us, — are shadows and illusions, — 
compared with the emotions, affections, and princi- 



176 



REALITIES. 



pies which lie hidden within the sanctities of the 
mind. 

2. But while all this is granted, still comes up 
the difficulty, that the sentiments which religion 
awakens are the illusions of the mind ; — by which 
must be meant, that they have no solid foundation 
in reason. We often hear what implies that he who 
looks for his main happiness in the religious affec- 
tions, and lives under the prevailing control of relig- 
ious convictions, is living under a delusion, — a for- 
tunate and happy one, perhaps, which no one would 
willingly dissipate, — - but still a delusion, to which a 
practical man, who understands himself and the 
world, will not yield. But is this the case ? I do 
not believe it is well ever for man to be under a de- 
lusion. Nothing is so good or safe as the truth. 
But is there any delusion here ? One thing is cer- 
tain, and that which is most essential and personal. 
The religious feelings, in themselves, are realities. 
There certainly is no illusion about them. They 
may be occasioned by what is not real, but they 
themselves are realities. The penitence of a guilty 
soul is a reality. Remorse, which hides itself in the 
monk's cell, or in the blaze of the world broods over 
its despair, is a reality. That reverence and trust 
towards God, which, without the excitement and 
the rushing throng of conflict, has made so many 
martyrs faithful, even to death, are realities. That 
ardor for truth, that desire to serve God and to be of 
use to man, which have caused so many missionaries 
to penetrate into sickly and barbarous climes, an 
heroic, forlorn hope, — in advance of those in search 



REALITIES. 



177 



of gain, or in the career of conquest, — -these feelings 
are realities. Whether reasonable or not, I say that 
at least their existence is a reality ; and what is 
more, they have such power that at this moment in 
myriads of homes and hearts, more than all things 
else, they are determining the blessedness or the woe 
of life. The cathedral, where in a rude age, amidst 
the German forests, quarries of rock grew into a 
temple of worship, was a reality, and yet but the 
symbol of a reality more sublime, — of the general 
and awful reverence for the Almighty, which from 
corner to key-stone built up this wonder of ages. 
Convictions of duty, the fear of God, remorse for 
guilt, are such realities, that they have covered the 
earth with altars, and loaded these altars with vic- 
tims. They have made mountains populous, and 
filled deserts with hermitages. They have stirred 
the heart of nations, and revolutionized again and 
again the face of the world. Wherever there is a 
great religious awakening among a people, whatever 
direction it takes, all things give way before it. 
Kings, statesmen, armies, endeavor to stop it, but it 
is as if they endeavored to stop a mighty stream 
with a bank of snow which is itself melted by the 
rushing waters, and only adds new force and volume 
to the swelling flood. And so of multitudes now on 
the earth, who this moment are confirmed in duty 
by their reverence for the unseen God, or in their 
great sorrows find a mysterious support in the senti- 
ment of trust in his providence, or who, standing by 
the grave of those dearest to them, repeat believing- 
ly Christ's words, " I am the resurrection and the 



178 



REALITIES. 



life," — whether founded on reality or not, these 
sentiments are not only real, but such potent reali- 
ties that, when once awakened, all else which we 
call real sinks into a subordinate place, while they 
give a frail mortal a victory over life, and a victory 
over death. 

But who will venture to say that such sentiments, 
the highest and the purest, in a manner the instincts 
of the soul, have no foundation in realities greater 
than themselves ? Think one moment of what man 
is, — and then consider what such words mean as 
holiness and sin, as repentance and forgiveness, as 
accountability, and immortality, and retribution. 
Think what is implied in the one great name of 
God. These feelings delusions ! Do you think 
that our illusion is the cherishing too much rever- 
ence for the Almighty Providence, or that we, who 
value so highly each other's favor, are in danger of 
thinking too much of God's approval ? Do we 
make more of death than God makes of it ? Or 
are we likely to think too much of Heaven, or of 
living so as to find mercy from Him who is of too 
pure eyes to behold iniquity? O thou wise man! 
too wise and too practical to be taken in by shad- 
ows, do you think that your danger or your delusion 
is the thinking too little of this world and too much 
of that which is to come ? 

Realities, — what are the solid, substantive, per- 
manent realities of the present life? By a peculiar 
and most benignant law, God is teaching us every 
day that this world of visible realities is to us person- 
ally but a passing shadow. It is by that mysterious 



EEALITIES. 



179 



law, that the most transient spiritual emotions en- 
ter into our personal existence and become sharers 
in its immortality, while all sensible objects, and 
all physical sensations even, are kept apart from 
our personality, and long before death are silently 
disconnected from us. The home which a man 
builds, he may leave, or it may decay. The affec- 
tions cherished in that home enter into his perma- 
nent personal existence. He gains wealth, and it 
seems something solid and real, and yet, simply 
through the decay of the senses, in a few years that 
wealth to him is nothing. He must live as self 
denyingly as if he feared a famine. The decora- 
tions of art, the appliances of luxury, — he is sepa- 
rated from them by the simple decay of sight and 
health. His legal rights remain the same, but while 
he yet lives, by the irresistible law of Providence he 
silently but steadily loses his hold on all that he has 
gained, while the realities which he brings out of 
life are the affections, the sentiments, the principles 
cherished amidst his earthly labors, but now con- 
stituting the essential life of the soul. Physical 
pain is real, but, once past, the sensation itself is 
beyond recall, while the fortitude with which it was 
borne remains a part of yourself. The pleasure dies 
out with the failing midnight lamps, but the selfish 
or disinterested feelings fostered by its enjoyment 
remain with you while the very memory of the 
pleasure drifts away for ever under the shadows of 
the past. 

Realities, — illusions ! There can scarcely be an- 
other case in which the true meaning of words is so 



180 



REALITIES. 



entirely reversed, and reversed the most entirely by 
those who claim the most practical worldly wisdom, 
"While the most impressive experiences of life are 
showing the imperishability of that which is spirit- 
ual, the whole order of Providence seems to tarn into 
a mockery the prevailing trust in all worldly prizes. 

The spiritual life, the man says, seems vague, 
dreamy, unsubstantial. Better stand on the earth, 
and cleave to the realities of the world in which we 
live. Gain and fame and power and pleasure are 
not shadows, but solid and real and permanent. 
And are they so indeed ? There is one word in 
whose frosty presence all their frail summer blos- 
soms wither. A man labors till his hair is gray for 
an independence. This is something to be relied 
on, — something to retreat back upon ; and when 
he has gained it, he will be at ease, and eat and 
drink and enjoy. It promises well in the distance, 
but it is hardly gained, when infirmity pushes the 
cup of enjoyment from the lips, and soon — death 
comes in ! He sees a family grow up around him, 
— a fair spectacle ; but if pure affections do not 
exist, or if they cannot look beyond the present, al- 
most as sad as fair, — for soon the goodly circle 
must be broken by death ! A man gains wisdom, 
cultivates his taste, surrounds himself with pic- 
tures and with books, and then — the eye grows 
dim, and then — comes death ! In the distance, 
closing the perspective, no matter how brilliant be- 
tween, there is- one word written which sends back 
a disastrous shadow over all, — and that word is 
death ! The swelling dreams of ambition, the la- 



REALITIES. 



181 



bors for wealth or distinction, the appliances for a 
comfortable or pleasurable existence, all have one 
end, and that is death ! In all the sparkling melo- 
dies of life, through all its brilliant and triumphant 
music, there runs a dirge-note, faint at the outset, 
like the low wailing of a flute threading its way 
through the resounding swell of instruments, but 
deepening ever, till you hear the dull pulsations of 
the muffled drum, and still swelling as it proceeds, 
till in the final cadences it is a tolling bell, swinging 
solemnly and slowly after every other sound is 
hushed. What words shall measure the shadowy 
and transient character of whatever belongs to this 
world ! 

Let those here present who have reached middle 
life go in imagination through this town, — any 
well-known district of this city, — over its hills and 
through its valleys. At first, it may seem that there 
has been comparatively little change. And yet, as 
you pause at house after house, of those which were 
standing twenty-five years ago, you probably can- 
not recall one out of whose doors a funeral has not 
passed. From this house a child was buried ; from 
this, one in maturer years. You might set up a 
tombstone beside every dwelling. A little while 
ago, so many of them were busy and active and 
engrossed, and now their memory remains ; but they 
have passed on to other scenes and to a higher tribu- 
nal. In so few years such changes ! of all which 
then seemed so real to them in this visible world, 
nothing remains but that which in some way had 
hold on the everlasting life ! 

16 



182 



REALITIES, 



Nay, though one lives on, in a few years a change 
like death comes over his history. Your home is 
not what it was a few years ago, — your interests 
and pursuits are different, — your worldly expecta- 
tions and hopes different, — your relations to the 
world different. What a few years ago seemed so 
substantial and real has faded, — has shrunk away 
like the receding tide from the beach ; and that only 
remains permanent which in some way shared in 
the permanence of the soul. 

We talk of this world as real. We stand on it as 
if its firm base could not be moved ; and yet while 
we stand there so confidently, it crumbles away be- 
neath us, and we become conscious of more august 
and sublime, even eternal realities, in the midst of 
which this solid globe is but as the bubble which 
floats compassed about by the invisible agencies of 
Nature and Providence, — realities to which the 
bubble whose thin surface mocks the rainbow, and 
the globe itself,, are but as the wreath of smoke that 
rises from a cottage on the hill-side, and hangs a 
little on the morning air, and then vanishes for ever. 

What are the realities of our existence ? When 
the buds of spring were swelling, our friend fell sick. 
The tree that overhung his window drooped down 
its opening leaves as if to bid him have hope, and 
the birds came and sang in the branches, a glad 
morning song after the weary night-watches. With 
failing strength he looked abroad and saw the fair 
ripening summer, and the opening skies, and the 
vision of cheerful, blessed life pervading nature. 
" These shall remain," he said, " but I shall soon 



REALITIES. 



183 



be gone." We bore him with the autumn to his 
grave. The winds sighed bleakly along the hills, 
and as we laid his body in its narrow home, the 
passing gust scattered one and another of the with- 
ered leaves that dropped from the tree above us 
into his open grave. Summer had come and gone. 
The grass was withered, the flower faded, and even 
while we gazed, the first scattered snow-flakes of 
winter drifted down to the ground, and melted and 
disappeared. Nature lay dead. The realities of 
spring and summer were gone, and yet at that 
moment our friend — was he not already intro- 
duced into sublime realities ? The spiritual world, 
the spirits of the departed, the immortal life, and 
Christ the Saviour, and God the Father, — well 
might he exchange for these the fairest show of our 
earthly seasons, for these are realities which endure. 
And when, as must be sooner or later, and latest 
is soon, you enter your sick-chamber, and know that 
you shall never pass out of it except to enter the 
eternal world, tell* me, what will be the realities on 
which the soul can then safely rest? It may be 
that then you may be indifferent, that disease may 
prostrate mind as well as body ; but the reality of 
your position will not be changed for that. Your 
next step forward will be into the revelations of the 
spiritual world. Then the great realities of exist- 
ence are the ones which you are next to meet. 
Accountability, death, judgment, God, — these are 
no longer words, but realities. "What angels shall 
come to keep you company through the dark valley ? 
They will be the angels, good or bad, who have sur- 



184 



REALITIES. 



rounded you here, — the evil angels that have 
visited you in your worldly career, or the angels of 
justice, and love, and trust, which are the angels of 
God. In that dread hour, all else is separated from 
us, and the realities which shall be our bliss or our 
doom are those spiritual realities which have their 
place and throne in the soul. 



SERMON XIII. 



THE WEARY AND HEAVY LADEN. 

COME UNTO ME ALL YE THAT LABOR AND ARE HEAVY LADEN, AND 
I WILL GIVE YOU REST. — Matt. xi. 28. 

There are in the world unbounded means of en- 
joyment, and in the human heart the capacities for 
enjoying, and yet, in any degree corresponding to 
God's gifts, the world is not a happy one. There 
are prosperity, and sanguine spirits, and gratified 
senses, and the appliances of wealth and culture and 
power. The surface of life is tossed and whirled in 
glittering eddies of excitement, across which stream 
the sunbeams. But, deep beneath, the waters — 
unreached by the sunbeams — lie cold and dark. 
Underneath this busy and shining life there is some- 
how a fatal want' of peace. Make all the exceptions 
and abatements which one pleases, and still the 
world, as a whole, is not a happy world. It is the 
dark mystery under the sun. Disease, toil with 
nothing in prospect but toil, the presence or the fear 
of want, the frost that blights childhood, the in- 
firmities which weigh down old age, the perpetual 
struggle against mortality, — these physical burdens 
16 * 



186 THE WEARY AND HEAVY LADEN. 



weigh heavily on the race. But they scarcely are 
more than symbols of heavier ones within, which 
pull down the strength that should bear them, — 
anxieties that wake with the morning, and beset 
one's dreams at night, despondencies, the failure of 
good purposes, fears that are in the way, hopes baf- 
fled, affections torn, bruised, and bleeding, and the 
nameless agonies of the undisciplined, badly regu- 
lated heart. And beyond this, that which is ever 
taking down our swelling joys, which breaks in on 
our pleasures and makes so many of them mock- 
eries of their name, is the unsatisfied conscience, — 
conscience, a blessed and benignant power when our 
friend, but which is rarely more than half a friend, — 
in most men awakened enough to affright them with 
its warnings, but too little obeyed to bless them 
with its peace. 

But there are those, you say, exempt from these 
troubles, whose sanguine strength knows neither 
pain nor fear, whose affections are fortunate, who 
have man's favor, and who traverse the plains of life 
environed by the shining atmosphere of hope, — vic- 
torious men, — the conquerors of life. Here is hap- 
piness. Not always! Bring up this man who is 
the world's envy, — have him up for trial, — enter 
his closet and hear his confession, — and how often 
shall you hear that he has all that God or man can 
give but one thing, — and that is peace of soul. 
Within him are the elements of a higher life, through 
which he is allied with God and with heaven, and 
he is conscious that to that which is highest and 
holiest in him he has been unfaithful. He is not 



THE WEAKY AND HEAVY LADEN. 



187 



what he ought to be, and the failure is at the vital 
point. Because of this, there is misgiving and dis- 
satisfaction in his heart. Sin, unsatisfied desires, a 
clinging sense of unfaithfulness, take the light out 
of life. 

To such a world, unfaithful, ignorant, sinful, and 
miserable in its sins, Christ came. He came to 
meet this condition of sin and wretchedness, — a 
wretchedness all the greater because the fruit of sin. 
That the sin exists, who can deny ? That its un- 
quiet heart needs rest, who can deny ? That we 
need guidance and help, who shall deny ? And it 
is to such a world Christ comes, and says : O 
guilty, wretched, and wandering ones, most weary 
and heavy laden, come and follow me, and I will 
give you rest! In the wilderness of life, crossed by 
a thousand paths, in which we go hopelessly astray, 
at the parting of the ways Christ stands, a celestial 
guide, and says : Follow me, and I will lead you to 
the realm of peace. Follow me, and ye shall find 
rest for your souls ! This is the point of the prom- 
ise. He does not promise exemption from trial, — 
that is needful for the discipline of virtue. He 
would not deliver man from duty, but help him to 
perform it; not save him from his mortal pilgrim- 
age, but guide him through its perils ; not take off 
all burdens, but awaken a strength within the soul 
which shall make them easily borne. Life, peace, 
strength, fidelity, immortal hope in the soul, — not 
the smoothing of the waves, but strength to rise 
above the waves, — is what he promises. 

And that which is promised is given. A way of 



188 



THE WEABY AND HEAVY LADE!?. 



speaking has grown up, which treats Christianity as 
if it had proved a failure, and as if anything like 
faith were in constant need of apology. It is to 
mistake both the Saviour's mission and man's needs. 
Christ did not bring sin and sorrow into the world. 
He found them in it, — the sad product of its own 
errors and vices. The great task of human wisdom 
has been to solve and conquer these evils. And 
what has been accomplished ? Take the common 
lot. Comparing it with what man might be, who 
shall deny it to be a melancholy one ? One single 
fact sums up in itself alone evils enough to eclipse 
the sun. With the majority of mankind, the first 
implacable question is, On how little can human life 
be sustained ? It is not a question with them of 
comfort, or culture, or prosperous careers. Life is a 
ceaseless struggle for daily bread. And with this 
are united the miseries of anarchy and despotism, of 
war, of ignorance, and all the other evils which afflict 
man, exasperated by the primary one. How much 
has the wisdom of statesmen done beyond enforcing 
order within this lot ? How little to remedy it ? 
How much has philanthropy done, beyond soothing 
for the hour, or covering over or hiding these ghastly 
wounds ? What has philosophy done, except to tell 
these millions to endure and toil and die ? The wis- 
dom of the world recoils, paralyzed, from the prob- 
lem of evil. Christ alone has really raised and light- 
ened the common lot. Enter this hovel. Here is a 
man who has lived in want, whose daily fireside 
companions have been destitution, sickness, and un- 
certain labor for scanty bread. It seems a night 



THE WEARY AXD HEAVY LADEN. 



189 



without morning ; — and yet this man has caught 
from some source a heroism of principle which 
shames your tender summer virtues, — Jionesty, fidel- 
ity, faith, piety, a cheerful hope, high as heaven. 
Somehow this man knows that, for all the darkness, 
God has not forsaken him. He has reared his chil- 
dren in Christian rectitude. He has kept a loving 
heart, and his prayers are prayers of thanksgiving. 
And that man's life — the life in his soul — has 
come from Jesus Christ. He trusts Christ's words. 
If his trust were in this world alone, he would be of 
all men most miserable. But he looks beyond. A 
few years more, when this hard discipline has fitly 
tempered his soul, if they are but faithful, he and his 
children shall meet in heaven. He confronts the ad- 
vancing evils with a disciplined and victorious faith. 
His strength is in Jesus Christ. Give uncounted 
treasures to him, and they would be dross compared 
with what the single assurance has been, Come unto 
me ye that are weary and heavy laden ; come and 
trust in me, and I will give rest unto your souls. He 
remembers that his Saviour was born in a manger, 
that he had not where to lay his head, and that he 
died on a cross, and he is travelling the same road 
along which the Son of God went before him. His 
outward lot remains indeed the same, but has Christ 
done nothing for him ? He has lighted up^the mis- 
ery of his hard condition, has ennobled his lot by 
revealing its end. He has put a heart into the man, 
and inspired it with courage and faith and loyalty to 
God. What neither statesman nor philosopher could 
do, he has transformed hopelessness into the sublim- 



190 



THE WEARY AND HEAVY LADEN. 



est hope, has transformed earthly trials into a heav- 
enly discipline, has built up his soul in virtue, and 
given him the 4 victory over life and death. A suffer- 
ing Saviour has revealed in his own person how the 
road to heaven may lead through all the miseries 
of the earth. Millions of the poor, the humble, and 
the wretched are this moment clinging to the words 
of Christ, and finding — not worldly prosperity, but 
what is better — strength and rest for their souls. 

But your lot is a happy one. The world gives 
you all you want. You need not seek and follow 
in order to find rest. Is it so, — not weary and 
heavy laden, no repinings, no jealousies, no un- 
governed passions to torture, no fears to darken, no 
desires that torment, no life to live, no death to die, 
no* misgivings of conscience, no shadow on the 
heart, no fears of God, no dread of retribution? 
Are all the miseries of man confined to bodily want 
and pain ? Not weary and heavy laden ? — has the 
world gone so smoothly that you have no wound of 
the heart, — that you have no unsatisfied longings, 
no need of a peace which the world does not give ? 
Alas ! if the heart could but utter itself, how many 
would be found pining in success, miserable in 
pleasure, dragging on through prosperity a defeated, 
profitless life, without satisfaction and without hope, 
their laugh hollow, leaving the halls of joy to sit 
down at home amid haunting griefs, their happiest 
hours when least with themselves, not daring to re- 
member, and unable to forget, this life exhausted to 
the dregs, and no joyful anticipation of another! 
Are there not those who in their inmost hearts have 



THE WEARY AND HEAVY LADEN. 



191 



learned that there is no such thing as rest till it is 
found in a soul at peace with God? To you, weary 
of paying homage to a world which breaks its prom- 
ises the moment it has enslaved you, burdened with 
the consciousness that life is not what it ought to 
be, — to you Christ says : Come unto me, ye weary 
and heavy laden ; come, and I will teach you how to 
live, so that life shall no more be a failure ; I will 
guide you to living fountains. Follow me, and ye 
shall find rest for your souls. And who doubts that 
promise ? Who does not know that the misery of 
his life is in the disorder and anarchy of his soul, and 
not in his outward lot ? Who does not know, that 
redemption from human misery must begin in a re- 
generation of the soul, in the awakening of its true 
life, and in the consecration of it to God ? Rest 
and peace of soul, — not gain or fame or power, 
but peace, hope, eternal life, — who shall find that, 
except in following Christ ? 

The earth has other scenes. There is one gate 
which is open for all, and it is that of the tomb. 
There is one visitor that comes to our door, and 
enters whether we will or no, and it is Death. 
These earthly ties must be broken, and whatever 
else may befall those we love, we must bear them 
or be borne by them to the grave. The aged head 
bows down, the little child sinks into the slumber 
that knows no waking, and manhood, from the 
midst of its cares, goes home from the sunshiny and 
crowded streets and lies down to die. There may 
or may not be joy in the world : it is certain there 
will be sorrow. How shall the griefs of life be met ? 



192 



THE WEARY AXD HEAVY LADEN. 



You strive in vain to steel yourself against them. 
The dear faces that are gone startle you at every 
turn. You would not be insensible, and so lose the 
blessed though painful memories of the treasures 
you have lost. There is a better way than that 
which turns grief into a hardness of heart. Christ 
says : Come to me and I will give you rest. I will 
teach you a trust which shall make memory a bless- 
ing, because over against it is set an immortal hope. 
I will teach you a submission which draws down 
strength and comfort from above. Here again he 
comes to the soul. He does not dry up human 
tears, but he takes out of them their bitterness. He 
makes death minister to faith in God and immortal- 
ity. He teaches you how to dwell with the living 
on earth, so that you may hope to dwell with them 
hereafter. He would purify and exalt the affections. 
He not only soothes grief, but would ennoble it ; 
he would make affliction sacred and sanctifying; 
and no one ever followed him, dwelling with the 
living as he teaches, mourning for the dead as he 
teaches, in trust and faith, but has afterwards been 
able to say, It is good for me to have been afflict- 
ed. " He giveth his beloved sleep," we read. Ah, 
more than this ! While they wake in these mortal 
sorrows, he giveth his beloved rest ! 

The text was immediately addressed to the sinful, 
to those burdened with a consciousness of transgres- 
sion, trembling at then danger and seeking deliver- 
ance. For such there was relief. The wonder of 
Christianity is its interest for the sinfnl. Its divin- 
ity is revealed in the fact, that the greatest mani- 



THE WEARY AND HEAVY LADEN. 193 

festation of God, and the greatest sacrifice, at which 
the world grew dark, was for the ungrateful and the 
guilty. Christ chose to be regarded as the friend of 
sinners. This was a new language in the world, — 
a language repeated then in scorn on the earth, but 
which caught its accents from heaven. The pros- 
perous easily have friends. The agreeable, the at- 
tractive, the great, the powerful, those rich in other 
gifts, have friends ; but Christ was the friend of the 
sinner, — not of his sins, but of the man, — willing 
even to die to deliver him from his^ sins. 

But the force of the words is not understood till 
we remember the kind of sinners of whom he was 
said to be the friend. It was of those who, besides 
being guilty before God, were held in contempt by 
man. Not those only who prudently kept within 
the bounds of permitted and reputable vices, but 
those who by sins no greater, but more disreputable, 
had sunk, often into wretchedness, always into con- 
tempt, — the outcasts whom the prosperous world 
passed by, as it did the lepers of the time, fearing 
lest the hem of its garment should be contaminated 
by their touch. Nothing could have shocked Juda- 
ism more than to see the Messiah take an interest 
in this class. The Pharisees might have borne our 
Saviour's rebukes if confined to themselves, but not 
the rebukes of one who sat at meat with publicans 
and sinners. They assumed as a matter of course 
that he would be their friend ; and such he was, 
their true friend, and, if they would but heed him, 
their Saviour. But they did not expect to be com- 
prehended in the same circle of love with those 
17 



194 



THE WEARY AND HEAVY LADEN. 



whom they stigmatized as sinners. This, therefore, 
he insisted on with such emphasis. He did not 
leave it to be tacitly understood, but loudly pro-, 
claimed, that of this wretched, despised, friendless 
class, this class degraded in its own estimation and 
held in scorn or hate by the rest of the world, he 
was the friend ; — not less the friend of others, but 
their friend and the friend of all. 

I have sometimes tried to imagine what were the 
feelings at that time of one of this contemned class 
on coming to Jesus, — the feelings of her, for ex- 
ample, who in her penitence knelt silently at his 
feet, washing them with her tears. She spoke no 
word. She knew with what scorn those around 
regarded her. She knew that Jesus must condemn 
her sins as none other did. But the eyes of the 
crowd were stony and pitiless, — there was no 
touch of mercy in them ; but Christ, while condemn- 
ing her sin, knew also her weakness, her struggles, 
her penitence. In his look was a pitying tender- 
ness. This being to whom she looked up had faith 
in her, had mercy for her, and because of this she 
could have died for him. In this, to her, most lonely 
world, he was her friend, and through him she still 
had hold on heaven. She heard and obeyed, and 
found the truth of the words, " Follow me, and ye 
shall have rest in your souls." 

He did not lead the sinner to think less lightly of 
sin, but he aroused his lethargic and hopeless soul. 
He made the poor, dispirited, friendless creature feel 
that he was competent to something better than a 
bad life, — made him feel that he was neither un- 
noticed nor helplessly lost; and this divine conn- 



THE WEARY AND HEAVY LADEX. 195 



dence and encouragement saved those whom human 
scorn had only hardened in guilty ways. They who 
defied the harsh and merciless judgment of man 
were melted by the tenderness and patience and 
confidence of Christ. And a strange spectacle it 
was, that the guilty outcasts of the world, who had 
ceased to look to a guiity fellow-creature for excuse 
or help, felt a divine attraction to the holiest being 
that had ever visited the earth. 

The words of Christ still repeat themselves to the 
sinful, but as of old in different tones, according to 
the classes who are addressed. There are those to 
whom sin is a burden. Penitent hearts there are, 
which desire to forsake evil, but which fear God, 
and which know so well that the next hour they may 
fail and fall, that they hardly dare to pray for help 
in their weakness, — whose good desires are palsied 
by discouragement, who are ready to sink in the 
waves, and need to support them that voice which 
upheld the faint-hearted disciple, and which still says 
to all who falter and fear, " I am with you ; be not 
afraid. " Such there are, and many such, frail, timid, 
self-reproachful, self-distrustful, with good desires 
but infirm wills, who have lost heart and hope, and 
are perishing for want of encouragement. To such 
come the words of Christ as words of life. "Be not 
fearful, but believing." ' ; Come, follow me, and ye 
shall find rest for your souls.-' 

But to the heedless and the hardened the words 
have another tone. Come and follow me, for so alone 
can you find rest. The conscience may sleep, but 
does not die. Heedlessness will not alter the laws 
of God, whose chariot-wheels still roll on in bless- 



196 



THE WEARY AND HEAVY LADEN. 



ings or retributions. Retribution may be delayed, 
but is sure. The insensibility which now gives the 
show of peace shall be waked by the last trump, 
when the dead shall be raised to life or to condem- 
nation. Come and follow me in God's appointed 
way, while life remains and the power of choice 
remains. Follow me that you may find rest for 
your souls. What are we when we dare to be, 
when we can be, unmindful of this voice ? Guilty 
we are at the best, and most unworthy ; but God 
grant that there may yet be that in our hearts 
which may respond to the appeal of Christ. We 
profess to believe in him. Are we ready to follow 
him ? Here is the question which it belongs to our 
hearts to answer. Had you lived in the time of the 
Saviour, and had he said to you as he did to the 
Apostles, Come and follow me, is there that in you 
which would have impelled you, like them, to leave 
all and follow him ? That question we cannot an- 
swer. But there is another that we can answer. 

We are now called upon to follow him, not in his 
sufferings in Judaea, but in the spirit of his life. 
Not in giving up all in a persecuting world, but in 
giving up our sins. Let the question be asked in 
your heart, in a tempting world, — Am I willing to 
follow Christ, — to take him for my guide in pur- 
pose and in conduct ? Am I willing to seek that 
rest which he promises, in the way he appoints ? It 
is the question of questions. God grant that we 
may be able to say truly, as if the presence of the 
Master were before us : " Thee will we follow. 
Frail, sinful, needing forgiveness, needing help, still 
it shall be our purpose to follow thee." 



SERMON XIV. 



PERSONALITY. 

AND GOD SAID UNTO MOSES, I AM THAT I AM | AND HE SAID, THUS 
SHALT THOU SAT UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, I AM HATH 
SENT ME UNTO TOU. — Exodus ill. 14. 

I make use of this text as implying and expressing 
the personality of God and of man. I am that I am. 
It is an expression of the immutable, essential ex- 
istence of Jehovah, self-subsistent and independent. 
And man, on his side, is addressed and aided as a 
being also having a distinct personal existence. The 
interest of the text, in this point of view, arises from 
its contrast with many tendencies of thought and 
speculation. I certainly shall not argue in a church 
of Christian worshippers the fact of this personality ; 
and yet, strange as it may seem, the tendency of 
speculation over the world has, to an extent which 
surprises one, been of a kind to throw doubt and 
misgiving over the permanent personality of man, 
and the real personality of God. It shapes that 
religion of the East which embraces in its bounda- 
ries more millions than any other on earth. In our 

17* 



198 



PERSONALITY. 



own day there are modes of thought which take the 
same direction. Indeed, in all lands where revela- 
tion has not been received, or where it has been re- 
jected, as soon as Philosophy has thrown off Poly- 
theism, the pendulum swinging to the other side, no 
tendency has been more common than that towards 
Pantheism ; to the idea not only that God is in all, 
but that the All constitutes God, the unconscious 
fountain of all being ; while the transient conscious- 
ness of man seems an exception and an intrusion in 
'the otherwise unconscious order of things, like the 
separate particles of air in the bubble, after a brief 
hour breaking and dissolving into the stream of uni- 
versal but unconscious being. It is in contrast with 
this tendency that the Scriptures are remarkable. 
Whatever else is uncertain, God, in -them, is a per- 
sonal being, man is a personal being, and such they 
shall continue through eternity. In the Scriptures, 
truth and righteousness and holiness are not God, 
but the attributes of God. Light and electricity and 
the blind forces of nature are not God, but the pro- 
ducts of his conscious will. Law and order, and the 
succession of cause and effect, are not God ; but over 
all, the living God, the Lord God Omnipotent, reign- 
eth. It is this doctrine which gives us a religion ; 
without it religion, in any proper sense of the word, 
is impossible. We are accountable, not to uncon- 
scious laws, but to a personal God, who is the source 
of all law and the judge between right and wrong. 
We trust not in that Nature which, though called 
gentle and kindly, is still unconscious, but in a per- 
sonal being who is a Father. In reading the history 



PERSONALITY. 



199 



of speculation in different lands and ages, one of the 
most striking points is the manner in which, through 
all the mists and fogs of human dreaming, this great 
truth of the personality of God, thus taught in the 
Scriptures, towers up distinct and clear, an immov- 
able column into the sun ; nor less remarkable the 
truth associated with it, the essential, permanent 
personality of man. 

It is of this personality of man, which is recog- 
nized in every conscious purpose, and in every deed, 
that I would particularly speak, and would deduce 
from it certain practical conclusions which show 
how the great truths of religion are connected with 
this primary fact of man's existence. 

The idea of personality implies not merely sepa- 
rate existence, but it implies conscious thought and 
perception, and feeling and will. Matter is not con- 
scious, the secondary forces of nature are not con- 
scious ; but man is not only a creature possessing 
intelligence and power, but it is conscious intelli- 
gence and force ; and, as showing the relation of this 
fundamental fact to other facts, I remark, that what- 
ever goes to constitute personality is undergoing a 
process of development from birth to death. Every- 
thing is adapted to bring out this personality. The 
infant has scarcely any conscious personal exist- 
ence ; but a thousand arrangements and adaptations 
of Providence at once begin to arouse the sleeping 
germ. Every pain and every pleasure makes it con- 
scious that it has an existence separate from the 
moving panorama around it. The blind, instinctive 
desire to obtain objects within its reach awakens 



200 



PERSONALITY. 



intelligence, and the awakened intelligence leads to 
the conscious will and endeavor to attain the object. 
Every struggle with what is without itself, makes it 
conscious of a power in itself; every command or 
restriction of the parent, every moral rule which is 
given to it, in the very effort to obey, brings out this 
consciousness of a personal existence. The affec- 
tions are personal, the conscience is personal, and 
every step in the progress of life enlarges the sphere 
of conscious personal activity, and wears deeper the 
channel of this individual being. 

I may seem to have dwelt too long on what needs 
explanation as little as it does defence. But I do it 
because the greatest truths of religion are not some- 
thing remote and foreign to us, but rest on this pri- 
mary fact of our personal existence. 

The doctrine of immortality ; — it is declared to us 
from above ; but the elements of the immortal life 
are in man, and belong to his personal existence. Our 
personality does not reside in the instruments we 
use, it does not reside in the hand or the bodily or- 
gans, which are mine and not myself, and which may 
all be destroyed, still leaving untouched this con- 
scious personal existence. 

Now there are two series of facts of the most 
opposite character, which run parallel through life. 
Whatever belongs to a human being which is not 
personal performs its office, and decays, and its work 
is obviously completed here upon the earth. For 
example, the human body, which is so adapted to 
the soul as to awaken its energies, goes on for a time 
growing, reaches its maturity, begins to decay, and 



PERSONALITY. 



201 



when man is prepared, or ought to be prepared, for a 
different condition of existence, dies. But it is not 
so with anything which constitutes man's personal 
being. Conscience, purpose, will, are unweakened 
by age. The conscious personal existence grows 
more distinct with years, as if it were gathering up 
its energies at the last, that it may be able to pass 
through the wreck of death unharmed. On that 
death-bed where the man lies feebly gasping forth 
his breath, though the senses are dimmed, though 
the bodily organs are enfeebled, it never entered your 
thoughts that anything that constitutes his essential 
personality has been touched by disease, more than 
it had been by health. Perhaps he never exhibited 
that which was essentially personal so much as in 
the midst of the feebleness and the pains of sickness. 
The instruments of expression and action are crip- 
pled, but every glimpse that breaks out reveals the 
same personal being, and, as far as your eyes can 
follow him into the closing shadows, it is still the 
•same being, — the essential personality, more and 
more intensified from birth to death. I am not ar- 
guing here in defence of the Christian doctrine of 
immortal life, but against the vague, floating, mysti- 
cal idea, that, in some unknown, inexplicable way, 
the personality of man so fades out that there shall 
be but a dim and scarcely traceable connection be- 
tween his future condition and the present. And to 
this I reply, that the very thing in man which lives 
and triumphs over death is that which constitutes 
his conscious personality; that all the discipline of 
life has been developing this personality, and that, 



202 



PERSONALITY. 



while everything else withers and fades, and is scat- 
tered like the dust from funeral urns, the personal 
being exists. If the dead live again, there is no 
transformation which affects the personal existence. 
He who lives here is the same conscious being who 
shall live hereafter, and all that we hope, and all that 
we fear, are connected with this conscious person- 
ality. 

This leads immediately to the question, What is 
the kind of connection between this life and the 
next ? How far, and in what way, may we ex- 
pect the consequences of the present life to appear 
in the life to come? — the question of a righteous 
retribution. 

From the nature of the case, the human mind in 
all ages has looked forward to the disclosures of the 
future with terrible apprehensions. Doubtless faith 
and trust may light the gloom, and multitudes have 
had a tranquil or enthusiastic confidence that they 
should leave their earthly trials to enter upon a heav- 
enly peace. But this has not been a prevailing feel- 
ing. The timid have hung trembling over the edge 
of the clouded and unexplored abyss ; poetry has 
peopled the realm of woe with the pale phantoms of 
the imagination ; remorse has filled it with the sym- 
bols of guilt and despair. The Scriptures reveal 
little except the simple fact that there shall be a 
retribution on evil and on good ; that the retribution 
shall be a righteous one ; that, under the government 
of God, sin can never lead to anything but evil and 
sorrow, and righteousness to peace and the Divine 
favor. We may not be able to lift the veil which 



PERSONALITY. 



203 



hangs over the mysteries of the future, but if we read 
man's nature by the light of revelation, we may per- 
haps find that which shall correct some of the worst 
errors of superstition. What the form of retribution 
may be, or its limits, no man will venture to say. 
The best we can say is, that it is in the hands of 
God, and must therefore be just in the method and 
beneficent in the purpose. 

But the personality of man suggests what it would 
seem must, in part at least, characterize this retribu- 
tion. The man is the same being here, and hereafter. 
And the retribution must connect itself with what 
constitutes his conscious, personal existence. The 
body falls by the waj, — that is not the man. Much 
may be forgotten, but so much of memory must re- 
main as will vindicate, and give meaning to, the 
righteous judgments of Heaven. The sense of right 
and wrong must remain, and a consciousness of what 
we have been and what we are. Whatever other 
form retribution may take, one thing would seem 
certain. If memory is not an accuser, if conscience 
is clear, the affections generous and pure, and faith 
transformed into devout trust, the soul must be in 
harmony with the Divine order. Such a soul at 
death has dropped the infirmities and hinderances 
of the body. Death is no winter blight, but the 
return of spring. It is the restoration of youth 
without the loss of the experiences of age. The 
soul has the kingdom of heaven within it, and is 
prepared for the offices of heaven. But, on the 
contrary, if the moral being and the spiritual affec- 
tions are run down and debased, if the soul has 



204 



PERSONALITY. 



withered and died in its best faculties before the 
body, the very capacity for heaven is wanting ; the 
man is shut out from heaven by no arbitrary decree, 
but just as one who has spoiled and darkened the 
eye is shut out from noonday light. Retribution 
comes in and through the essential laws of the soul 
itself. Its impoverishment is its misery. It has no 
longer the senses for a shield, nor can it forget itself 
amidst their turbulent excitements. The man is 
thrown back on his essential self. He will have 
the blessedness of just so much good as there is in 
him, — no more and no less. He has come to the 
truth. The day of shows has gone by, and it is 
with a man as he is. If the widow's mite represent 
a disinterested, self-sacrificing heart, not because of 
the mite she gives, but for the heart that prompts it, 
she shall sit with the saints ; and though we give all 
our goods to feed the poor, without charity it profit- 
eth nothing. What a revolution, in that day, from 
the mere reducing of a man back to his personality ! 
Wealth and poverty have ceased to exist ; past trials 
and joys are but the storms and calms which the 
voyager remembers, after he has reached the haven. 
All that is great and all that is humble in the world 
are subjected to new measurements. The mas- 
querade of life is over, and out of life man has 
brought nothing but himself. There is no more 
terrible idea of retribution than this. We escape 
from the description of superstition and fear, but 
here we come to a retribution which is the out- 
growth of man's essential and permanent nature. 
Here is something from which there is no escape. 



PERSONALITY. 



205 



The penalty comes, with the fact that the memory 
is loaded with reproaches, that the affections are 
maimed and perverted, and that the moral being 
is below the happiness of heaven. The molten 
floor, the lurid vault, the myriads of defiant spirits 
which the poet describes, and, on the other hand, the 
pictures of a paradisiacal state, seem faint and mean- 
ingless descriptions both of heaven and of hell, com- 
pared with that idea of retribution which is con- 
nected indissolubly with the spiritual nature of man. 

This fact of personality connects us not only with 
what is sad and fearful, but with all that is brightest 
and most hopeful in existence. Oar connection with 
the spiritual universe is not accidental. We do not 
leave the world of the senses to enter the world of 
spirits as aliens. The senses are accidental and 
transient ; but that spiritual consciousness which 
constitutes man's essential personality includes those 
spiritual attributes which create relationship between 
him and all spiritual agents. Nay, the very min- 
istries which develop the individual personality are 
creating vital and permanent relations between moral 
beings. There may be infinite differences in degree, 
but there are bonds of sympathy which run through 
all orders of moral beings. But we are not connect- 
ed alone with spiritual intelligences who have never 
had a home on earth. It is this fact of a permanent 
personality which bridges over the gulf of death, and 
connects those who are departed with those who are 
left behind on earth. As we follow the dead to their 
graves, what sad and despairing questions rise in the 
mind! Are we not separated for ever ? The mother 

18 



206 



PERSONALITY. 



craves, with an inappeasable longing, again to see 
her child. In her dreams she hears its voice, and 
throws out her arms to clasp it to her heart. What 
is this terrible mystery of death ? Does it leave un- 
broken the bonds of affection ? Though we may 
remember, may not the departed forget ? Can any 
interest in the earth survive the passage of that 
flood ? And when we go forward in that great 
procession of humanity, whose forward ranks mo- 
mently melt away and disappear in the shadows, 
even if affection remain, can there be any recognition 
by one of another ? I confine myself here to those 
illustrations of the Christian doctrine of immortality 
which are derived from the fact of man's personality. 
We come at once to a decisive consideration. All 
consciousness of right or wrong must be connected 
with actual fidelity or unfaithfulness. The memory, 
which can identify us with ourselves in the past, is a 
memory of actual events. The affections, which are 
a part of ourselves, have been developed by special 
objects. The personality of man has been brought 
out through its relations with what is external to 
itself. My consciousness of a personal existence is 
bound up inextricably with affections and memories, 
with hopes and fears and moral judgments, which 
connect us with others. Because the departed retain 
their personal existence, they carry forward with them 
the memories and affections which unite them with 
those who are left behind. Nay, the very progress 
to a higher condition of being only adds wisdom and 
tenderness and purity to these spiritual ties. The 
promise of immortality is the promise of immortality 



PERSONALITY. 



207 



to the affections. Earthly bonds are subject to dis- 
ruption, but all true bonds which unite us with those 
who have gone before us, though they may often 
fade and occupy a less prominent place, can never 
be broken. So much is sure. Amidst the changes 
of earth we have permanent relations with heaven. 

Can it be supposed for a moment that they who 
have left us have ceased to feel an interest in what 
is here ? Does the parent who traverses all the 
oceans of the globe lose interest, amid new occu- 
pations, in those he has left behind, or does he not 
rather give them a place in every new scene ? Or, 
to take the highest example, can we imagine that 
the Saviour has lost his interest in the welfare of a 
world which he came to redeem ? Can we imagine 
that the saintly men who lived and died as his dis- 
ciples can do otherwise than rejoice at the progress 
of truth among those who are struggling now, as 
they once struggled, amid the trials of earth ? It is 
in our nature to look with peculiar tenderness and 
interest on those who are contending with the same 
trials through which we have passed. The increase 
of strength and wisdom only deepens the interest. 
And I cannot deem it an idle fancy, that they who 
have left us, because of the new light in which they 
dwell, regard with an interest they never felt here 
the welfare of those whom they loved. I can believe 
that the parent follows every wandering, halting step 
of a child with alove which heaven has only purified, 
and that every virtue and every trial borne well on 
earth sends a ray of happiness upward into heaven. 

From the side of these graves whose ranks cover 



208 



PERSONALITY. 



the earth, what myriads are looking up, through their 
tears, to the silent skies, as if they were bereaved of 
all that can make life precious to them. Can we 
believe that no eyes look down into this realm of 
trial and sorrow ? Shall we not rather believe that 
the transient bereavement is an eternal possession, 
that death is only purifying these earthly bonds that 
they may be more lasting, and that, if we give heed 
to the teachings of the past, and to what we know 
must be the prayers for us of those who are now in 
heaven, and if we cherish in ourselves that spirit 
which creates and preserves affinities between us 
and them, death, though it bring them not back 
to us, shall take us to them ? As we stand by the 
death-bed, the room is full of gloom and sadness, 
and dropping tears, because of the soul that departs. 
A few years more, and you may lie on the same bed, 
and around you shall be the same scene of grief and 
gloom. Yet when your closing eyes of flesh have 
looked their last farewell, the eyes of the spirit shall 
behold another presence, and the one you mourned 
may be the one to welcome and guide you into the 
opening light. 

I have dwelt on this fact of man's personality, of 
course not for its own sake, but because it leads to 
other facts, the most momentous and sublime. The 
mere fact that we are to live, that this human soul 
amidst all changes is to preserve its individual being, 
introduces us into an immortal existence, and unites 
us with all spiritual beings. It is this which makes 
sin, which is the debasement of one's essential self, 
the greatest of all woes, the only hopeless evil. It is 



PERSONALITY. 



209 



this which identifies righteousness and piety with 
every reasonable hope that we can cherish. A 
righteous, merciful, and Christian soul need fear no 
evil. It may pass through trials, may be subjected 
to needed discipline, but shall fear no evil. The 
laws of the Almighty are on its side. Good beings 
rejoice in its fidelity, and in life and in death it may 
put unwavering trust in God. 



18* 



SERMON XV. 



UNRESERVED OBEDIENCE. 

THERE WAS A MAN OF THE PHARISEES, NAMED NICODEMUS, A RUL- 
ER OP THE JEWS. THE SAME CAME TO JESUS BY NIGHT, AND 
SAID UNTO HIM, RABBI, WE KNOW THAT THOU ART A TEACHER 
SENT PROM GOD ; FOR NO MAN CAN DO THESE MIRACLES WHICH 
THOU DOEST EXCEPT GOD BE WITH HIM. — John iil. 1, 2. 

Nicodemus is mentioned three times in the New 
Testament. On each occasion he is spoken of as 
one who came to Jesus by night. The first occasion 
is the one referred to in the text. The second is 
when the chief priests and rulers are endeavoring to 
excite the people against Jesus, and to destroy him. 
The third time is when, with others, he meets to em- 
balm the body of the crucified Saviour. But in each 
case, as something that in a word disclosed his char- 
acter, he is described as " he who came to Jesus by 
night." He believed that Jesus was the Messiah, 
but dared not publicly avow that belief. He wished 
to stand on that ground where he could secure all 
the advantages of a follower of Christ, and, at the 
same time, lose none of his favor with the people. 
His better feelings and principles led him to the side 
of the Saviour; but these were not sufficient to 



UNRESERVED OBEDIENCE. 211 

make him take a decided stand. When Jesus is 
pursued for his destruction by the chief priests and 
rulers, he is too much of a timeserver to espouse an 
unpopular cause. As far, indeed, as he can do it 
without implicating himself, he endeavors to allay 
the passions of the priests and rulers ; but he is 
hushed by the first whispered suspicion, that he may 
himself be one of these Galileans. He appears not 
in the judgment hall of Pilate in defence of inno- 
cence ; nor is he among those who stand at the foot 
of the cross. But when the trial is past, the cruci- 
fixion over, the multitude dispersed, he comes for- 
ward from his retirement, to show a comparatively 
safe reverence for the Saviour by aiding in his em- 
balmment. He would gladly be a follower of Christ ; 
but he was still more anxious not to lose the respect 
of the people, his place in the Sanhedrim, his name 
and standing in his nation. As far as was consist- 
ent with retaining these, he would give up all to 
Christ ; but these he could not give up. He had 
neither the manliness nor the conscience to give up 
all to the right. He was one of those who espouse 
a good cause earnestly when the sun shines, but 
when a cloud comes over, retreat and cannot be 
heard of. 

Such a character is deserving of the deepest com- 
miseration. It is not all evil. There is much sen- 
sitiveness of conscience, much love of truth and 
right. But they are not sufficient to lead him to 
make many sacrifices to them. The world has 
looked with contempt on such a character, not be- 
cause it is altogether bad, — for a feeble conscience 



212 UNRESERVED OBEDIENCE. 

is better than none at all, — but because it is weak 
and unmanly. Nicodemus believed in Christ. How 
much happier had he been, had he said, I will be 
faithful to my convictions, I will give an entire and 
unreserved obedience to what I believe to be right. 
Then should he have stood before the world as a 
Paul or a John, scarcely behind the first of the Apos- 
tles, instead of being an example to all generations 
of weakness and pusillanimity. 

But this half obedience to God is not occasioned 
solely by the fear of man. It has as many different 
forms and causes as there are different passions and 
objects of pursuit. One man will give an unreserved 
obedience to God, as far as is consistent with his 
good standing in the world. Another makes, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, a different reservation. 
He will give an unreserved obedience, — he will only 
except some single passion, appetite, or habit. Such 
was the case with the young man who came to 
Jesus and sought "what good thing he should do 
that he might inherit eternal life." He had kept the 
commandments: and Jesus beholding him — behold- 
ing his many excellent qualities — loved him ; but 
he saw also the real defect in him, his worldliness ; 
and, to make it apparent to the young man, he 
says, — referring to the persecuting spirit of the day, 
which made it almost impossible to retain his world- 
ly advantages and avow himself a Christian, — " One 
thing thou lackest, — if thou wouldst be perfect, go 
and sell all thou hast, and give to the poor, and come 
and follow me." That is, it is as if he had said 
generally, Can you, if usefulness, if duty require, 



UNRESERVED OBEDIENCE. 



213 



give up all you possess ? Is your love of right as 
strong as your love of worldly prosperity ? The 
young man felt it was not. He could do everything 
but this. This test-question had revealed to him 
the weak part of his character. He could obey God 
entirely, until it came to the sacrifice of his worldly 
gains. And he went away sorrowing, for he had 
great possessions. Then said Jesus, " How hardly 
shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of 
God." So insidiously and easily do they gain do- 
minion over the soul. 

The difficulty with this young man was in princi- 
ple precisely the same as that of Nicodemus. Both, 
to a certain extent, valued what was good and ex- 
cellent. Both desired to obey God. u Almost were 
they persuaded to be Christians." But between 
that " almost " and entirely, how deep and wide 
the gulf! 

My discourse at this time is contained in these 
narratives. I have brought them forward to show 
the importance of taking a decided stand on Chris- 
tian principle, — by that to live, by that to die ; 
the importance of giving not a half obedience, — an 
obedience limited by pleasure, or ease, or passion, or 
worldly interest, — but an entire and unqualified obe- 
dience to duty, to conscience, or that which contains 
all in itself, to the will of God. 

The character of Nicodemus is not rare or excep- 
tional. Now, and at all times, there are multitudes 
who would probably describe themselves as halting 
on this middle ground ; — half men of principle and 
half not, — knowing and approving what is right, 



214 



UNRESERVED OBEDIENCE. 



but doing what is wrong, — wavering between wish 
and will, between a religious and irreligious life, — 
repenting to-day of that which they will be again 
guilty of to-morrow,- — wishing that they might be 
religious men, yet hesitating to become such,- — lov- 
ing what is right and good, and seeking it except 
with the reservation of some passion, or habit, or 
interest, — standing where the Jewish ruler did, 
undecided and weak, needing to take but a single 
decisive step forward to be almost perfect men, yet 
hesitating to take it. Upon such, I would urge the 
need of taking this decided step forward in the 
Christian course. 

It might seem sufficient to say, what all acknowl- 
edge, that it is a duty. But it is not only the first 
of all duties, — the fundamental one, — embracing all 
others. It is a duty, the neglect of which is followed 
by results which show the essential place it holds in 
a rightly ordered life. It is necessary to any stable 
peace of mind. If one of generally good desires 
and purposes fails to take this decided step, he 
dooms himself, almost of necessity, to the loss of 
all inward composure, and of that tranquillity which 
comes from the consciousness of fidelity to one's 
convictions. 

The case of Nicodemus is but an example of all 
who waver between good and eviL His convictions, 
his better feelings, would make him a follower of the 
Saviour. As night, with its obscurity and solitude, 
comes, he seeks him out ; he listens to his teachings ; 
he believes ; and very likely thinks that henceforth 
he will no longer waver, — will espouse his cause. 



UNRESERVED OBEDIENCE. 



215 



But the morning returns, and all is changed. In its 
light the honors of life glitter again, and the voices 
of those he fears are around him. He meets in the 
street the lordly Pharisee, the scorning Sadducee, — 
he sits in the Sanhedrim with the wise and noble of 
his nation. How shall he avow before them his 
adoption of a faith which they all hold in contempt ? 
How can he give up the respect he has toiled all his 
life to gain, and take shame for honor, and infamy 
for applause ? He will wait till the morrow. Some- 
thing may occur which may render it safe to proclaim 
himself a believer in the Galilean. He leaves the 
crowd, and in retirement his better feelings gain once 
more the ascendency. Thus is he tossed to and fro, 
— not daring to be a man, — not daring to appear as 
he is, — not daring to think of himself lest he should 
despise himself. Thus life goes on, and when its 
last hours approach, and its prizes fade, there is one 
thought which, above all other thoughts, presses on 
his soul, — that he has feared man more than God, — 
that he has sacrificed his best principles and convic- 
tions to the distinctions which man can give. He 
has had no peace in life, and in death he is full of 
shame and self-reproach and fear. So with the 
young man to whose history I refer. If the question 
of the Saviour does not lead him to take a step for- 
ward, — if he do not say with truth, " I will rejoice 
to know my duty, and if its performance should in- 
volve the sacrifice of all those possessions which I 
have so much prized, the sacrifice shall be cheer- 
fully made," — there can henceforth be no peace 
within him. The good and the evil principle will 



216 



UNRESERVED OBEDIENCE. 



carry on perpetual war in his soul, till one or the 
other is annihilated. He may be useful and hon- 
ored for his many virtues, and loved for his amiable 
qualities ; but after all, in the secret consciousness of 
his own soul he feels that something is hollow and 
unsound. After all, there is something which he 
loves more than duty. The god that rules in his 
soul is not the true God. And while this remains 
so, just in proportion to his other good qualities, to 
his love of what is right and holy, will be his inward 
self-reproach and remorse and fear. 

How these men would relieve themselves from 
the misery of life, could they but bring themselves 
to take one more step forward, and say in truth, and 
practically: " I stand no more on this middle ground, 
compounding for sins I love by virtues which I am 
not tempted to violate. I take the stand which con- 
science requires. I will give an unreserved obedi- 
ence to God." Let him take this ground practically 
and faithfully, and he may be stripped of all his 
honors, and be despised by those whose applause he 
courted ; he may be poorer than the poorest, and 
have no place to lay his head ; but a glory from 
heaven shall rest on him, and he shall stand erect 
before men and angels. 

Could we lay open human hearts, and trace out all 
their hidden causes of uneasiness and unhappiness, 
we should probably find that a vast proportion origi- 
nates in this unfaithfulness. We should find that 
the man had not taken this stand, that he did not 
give an unreserved obedience to duty and to God. 
We should find, however the life might be in the 



UNRESERVED OBEDIENCE. 



217 



man, that there was some passion, some habit, some 
interest, some object of desire, and some sin, which 
was not yet brought under the dominion of duty. 
We should find the man, by specious, but even to 
himself unsatisfactory sophisms, striving to recon- 
cile the indulgence with the duty. But unable to 
do this, he is filled with perpetual misgiving and 
self-reproach. Were you to charge him with wrong- 
doing, he would deny it, and defend himself; but in 
the silence of his heart his conscience is mightier 
than his logic, and scatters like chaff his sophisms, 
and with unceasing voice says to him, " Thou art 
faithless." And who can stand up before the con- 
demnation of his own conscience ? 

And through what can a man not go who has 
surrendered himself, without one reserve or after- 
thought, to do and bear the will of God? How 
does the spirit of unreserved obedience exalt and 
strengthen characters naturally weak and of quite 
an ordinary quality! It has been the custom, not 
to go beyond our Protestant history, to treat con- 
temptuously the feeble and faltering courage of 
Cranmer. And yet the final, though almost en- 
forced, consecration of himself to his duty, has gone 
far in the estimation of mankind to cover over his 
lifelong weakness. And in his own case, how, even 
in the last extremity, his guilty hand in the flames, 
— how did the simple, though too long-delayed, de- 
termination to abide by truth and right, give him a 
peace of mind which he had not known when bask- 
ing in a monarch's favor! I hear one of far nobler 
stamp, Sir Thomas Moore, with death as the 

19 



218 



UNRESERVED OBEDIENCE. 



alternative of his choice, say, " It is not necessary 
for me to live, but it is necessary to speak the truth." 
1 remember the faithful men who have thought the 
soul's integrity better than life ; and I acknowledge 
the nobleness of a character which has taken its stand 
on the eternal laws of right and God. He stands 
strong who keeps a pure conscience. He who has 
cast out the last bosom sin, and said with truth, " I 
w T ill strive to give an unreserved obedience to God," 
has little to fear in life, and nothing in death. Peace 
attends him alike in palaces and in dungeons. The 
only two powers that could greatly mar his peace 
are his friends, — his conscience and his God. 

I have said that the want of taking this decided 
stand robs one of peace. But finally a stand must 
be taken. In time, either duty on the one hand, or 
interest, passion, habit, bosom sin, on the other, will 
gain an undisturbed ascendency. Nicodemus will 
overcome his undue anxiety about popular favor, or 
will give up the ineffectual struggle ; and the young 
man will conquer his controlling love of gain, or will 
be conquered by it, — and will bow down, the sub- 
ject of Mammon. Just so will it now be with one 
like them. For a time, if there is any sensitiveness 
of conscience, there will be great inward uneasiness 
and unhappiness. But, by and by, the man takes a 
step forward in the right way and places duty on the 
throne, or the bosom sin or prevailing interest gradu- 
ally acquires more and more authority. And then, 
too often, folio ws a life of moral paralysis. It has 
been remarked sometimes with surprise, how com- 
mon it is for men whose general characters are good 



UNRESERVED OBEDIENCE. 



219 



to make no progress in goodness. Years pass, and 
there is no perceptible advance. "We know that 
goodness is a living thing. If it really have domin- 
ion in the heart, it must certainly, though it be 
gradually, temper all the passions, give higher aims 
to life, purify the affections, and constantly elevate 
the whole man. Take ten, twenty years, and it 
will be seen the man has been ascending morally. 
His falls are less frequent, and his good feelings and 
efforts more spontaneous and habitual. And yet are 
there not many who keep on the same level ? What 
is the reason ? I will not say that it is always so, 
but let us ask ourselves, may it not be that, though 
there be the general purpose of leading a Christian 
life, there is some reserve made, consciously or un- 
consciously, in favor of some interest, habit, or bosom 
sin. If this be the case, it will account for the want 
of all religious growth. It scarcely matters whether 
the sin be small or great, — it may be some passion, 
habit, interest, or indulgence which holds but a small 
place in our lives, and may by the world be un- 
marked. If it exist within us, and we know it, no 
matter what otherwise may be our virtues, this one 
bosom sin will finally poison our whole moral being. 
That one loose plank may sink the mightiest ship 
that ever floated on the seas. Such a man's first 
step onward must be over this sin of which he is 
conscious. It may be but taking a mote out of the 
eye, — it may be cutting off the right hand, — but 
that sin* must be put away or he will stand still in 
his Christian course. But worse than this, through 
the implications of society and habit, through the 



220 



UNRESERVED OBEDIENCE. 



love of consistency, one such sin retaining its mas- 
tery may drag the whole character down to its own 
level. If one who purposes generally to lead a 
Christian life leaves one part of his character under 
subjection to other principles, if he consciously lives 
in the practice of one sin, it is to be feared that 
gradually all his other virtues will decline. If one 
purposes generally to be a good man, this sin will 
constantly recur to him, and will bring perpetual 
self-reproach. The thought of moral or religious 
progress will come to be associated with conquests 
over it. All else is easy. There must be the place 
of struggle, — and if he fail there, he yields up, and 
is dispirited and lost. 

It is as in the siege of some fortified place. There 
is always some point on which the main force of the 
assault is made to bear. To the casual spectator 
during peaceful days, it might seem altogether un- 
conspicuous and unimportant, — a projecting angle 
in a line of wall, — a slight depression or elevation in 
the chain of defences, — a low-lying embankment, 
scarcely visible at a distance above the level field ; 
but it is discovered that there is the key of the 
fortress. Towards that point, in closing circles, the 
trenches mine their midnight approaches. On every 
hill and ridge low mounds of earth spring up, behind 
which are dragged forward and mounted the dread 
artillery of war. In the rear, column behind column 
is prepared for the assault. At the appointed hour 
the batteries of an empire pour on this devoted spot 
their iron hail. Earth and air blaze with horrors ; 
through the murky day and the black midnight 



UNRESERVED OBEDIENCE. 



221 



rages and roars the tempest of fire ; all else is 
neglected ; every sentinel on the farthest outpost, 
every wounded soldier who can drag himself to a 
neighboring height, the awe-struck peasant on the 
distant hills, watches how on that point goes the 
day. And when, under cover of smoke and fire and 
the wildest fury of war, the columns of attack move 
silently and swiftly on to plunge into the terrors that 
gird and guard a few rods of the shattered wall, every 
one knows that the hour of decision has come ; in 
that narrow breach, choked with dead and dying, is 
decided the fate of armies and of empires. Such a 
contest must go on in the heart of every man who 
desires to be a Christian, and yet has reserved some 
bosom sin as an exception to his Christian life. That 
is the key to his character. Against that weak point 
will be directed the assault of all the powers of evil, 
and there he contends for moral life or death. 

Thus often it is true, almost in its fullest literal 
sense, that which is asserted in the strong expression 
of Scripture, — " Whosoever shall keep the whole 
law, and yet offend in one point, is guilty of all." 
It is true in a double sense. He is guilty by allow- 
ing the moral sense to be dragged down to the level 
of the sin ; — and guilty, though he does not practi- 
cally violate all duties, inasmuch as he shows that in 
any moral conflict there is some passion, interest, or 
habit stronger than his regard for duty, and whose 
bidding, in spite of his fancied reverence for God, 
he will ultimately obey. If he does not violate all 
duties, it is because they do not interfere with the 
exacting despotism of the presiding principle. They 

19 * 



222 



UNRESERVED OBEDIENCE. 



exist on sufferance, not with authority of their own. 
But oftentimes it will go farther, and vitiate the 
whole practice of the man. To return to the cases 
cited from the Gospel history. Both of these men 
loved what was true and good, but there was some- 
thing they loved more. And that governing princi- 
ple was strong enough to cause them both to shrink 
from adopting Christianity. And whatever else had 
interfered with the governing principle would have 
been sacrificed in the same way. How often do 
we see some single sin, some passion indulged to 
excess, some habit not under subjection to duty, 
grow and swell till finally it envelops the whole 
character and presses out its life ! 

There is but one safe, one right course. It is for 
us to do what we feel that Nicodemus and the young- 
man needed to do, in order to complete their charac- 
ters, — to say in truth, as the first thing, I will in 
all cases seek what is right, and I will strive faith- 
fully to give an unreserved and unqualified obedience 
to the will of God. There shall be no reservation, 
no sin hid away in my bosom, no false pretences to 
myself ; all, at least in purpose, shall be clear and 
straightforward, and in the sunshine. 

He that takes this stand in earnest has begun the 
true Christian life. It is a course of progress and 
growth. He has life in himself. His defects, his 
habits, his affections, his passions, will be gradually 
subdued, and his whole character be elevated. His 
life will not be spent in miserable and torturing 
calculations as to how far he may venture on ques- 
tionable ground. He will not have to palter with 



UNRESERVED OBEDIENCE, 



223 



his duty, and exhaust his intellect in framing de- 
fences before the bar of his conscience for wrong- 
doing. Whatever else he may have to sacrifice, 
he has gained solid ground on which to stand, — 
he has cast off the heaviest weights that oppressed 
his conscience ; before him is an ascending road, 
and above him the opening heavens. 

The taking of this step of which I have spoken 
is the most important event of life. Till it is taken, 
life, for all its most important moral purposes, has 
been nearly wasted. If you have not taken this 
step, your years may be many or few, but you 
have yourselves felt the necessity of it. In the 
midst of weakness within, and temptations from 
without, you have felt that it is not safe for you 
to trust to accident or to your companions for your 
virtue. Something deeper and more fixed is wanting 
than this, — some solid ground, — some principle on 
which you can stand when all worldly calculations 
and interests cease to sustain your virtue. Take 
then that ground, — the ground alike of manliness 
and Christian virtue, which your own conscience 
requires, and which, if you would be a good man, 
must be taken, — that first of all you will seek what 
is right, and that, by the aid of Heaven, that shall be 
done ; that neither ease nor passion nor the solici- 
tations of companions shall make you swerve from it, 
or desert your footing on this rock. You need not 
do it loudly, nor with many professions. Only do it. 
Do it with the silent determinations of your heart, 
with meditation and prayer to God, and you shall 
have begun on that course which ends in all that 



224 



UNRESERVED OBEDIENCE. 



is manly, virtuous, and noble in Christian character. 
Do this, and all is safe which is of any permanent 
worth on earth, or in heaven. Do this, and you shall 
not need, when years advance, and decay has already 
begun, to repent of misspent years, and to drag out 
your remaining days in despairing efforts to undo 
all your tastes and habits and hopes and affections, 
but you shall look back on a path bright from the 
beginning. 

To put the lesson of the text in a more practical 
form. To the ambitious man I would say, Can you, 
if duty require, make a cheerful sacrifice of your 
ambitious hopes ? Let him who is occupied with 
business say, Am I ready to gain and use property 
in entire subjection to Christian duty ? To those 
with strong passions and appetites I would say, 
Are you ready to deny them as soon as the law 
of God requires ? To all I would say, Ask your 
own hearts, have you no bosom sin that is loved 
more than duty ? no passion stronger than your 
purpose to obey the will of God ? This question 
is one which, if we have not asked it already, we 
must soon, with most anxious hearts, ask ourselves. 
How soon that time may be, we know not. But 
the sickness of the young and the decay of age 
warn us that it may be soon. The changes of life, 
and death that strides in and lays his finger of ice 
on the foreheads of the companions and friends at 
our side, warn us, in the midst of so much which is 
uncertain, to cleave to what will not fail. When we 
pause in our worldly careers, and dwell for a moment 
on the changes that take place at our very side, and 



UNRESERVED OBEDIENCE. 



225 



remember that we too are mortal and accountable, 
it seems as if the only question that could greatly 
interest us must be as to how far our lives have been 
in accordance with, and in subjection to, the will of 
God. Here then, on the solid ground of Christian 
principle, let us take our stand, resolving with the 
help of Heaven to surrender our lives to the Divine 
law, — no longer to waver between good and evil, 
between earth and heaven, but to bind our hearts 
to the perfect law of God. 



SERMON X.Y I . 



A PASSING WORLD LEAVES PERMANENT 
IMPRESSIONS. 

FOR THE THINGS WHICH ARE SEEN ARE TEMPORAL, BET THE THINGS 
WHICH ARE NOT SEEN ARE ETERNAL. 2 Cor. iv. 18. 

A striking illustration of the way in which ex- 
tremes may meet is seen in the common tendency 
of religious men, and of irreligious and worldly men, 
to disjoin the temporal and spiritual worlds. 

The man of the world has said, These things of 
the spiritual life are too vague and shadowy for me ; 
it is only in this visible world that I find tangible 
realities. He breaks the connecting: link between 
the world of business and the world of religion, by 
viewing and treating the latter as a mere shadowy, 
unsubstantial delusion. On the other hand, the 
general tone of religious teaching has been : This 
world is transient, its interests momentary, ail must 
soon pass away; disregard it, therefore, hold it 
lightly, trample it under foot ; if it may be, divorce 
yourself from its labors and interests. The promi- 
nent idea which theologians have urged is, that the 
things which are seen of this world are unimportant, 
because they are transient. But suppose the world 



A PASSING WORLD, ETC. 



227 



does pass away, name and fame and gain, what 
then ? If in its passage it leave indelible impres- 
sions on the soul, if it determine lasting qualities of 
character, its importance to man is almost infinite, 
like the duration of its influence. The fire that con- 
sumes a city goes out in a single night ; the hurricane 
that dismantles and wrecks a fleet is lulled to rest, 
like the sobbings of a child, with the coming of morn- 
ing ; but though flame and storm pass away, who 
measures their importance by their transitory charac- 
ter ? Years will elapse, and still families will lan- 
guish in poverty, or mourn the loss of some one 
buried in the sea, because of that brief night. 

The real question respecting this world is not 
whether it be or be not transient, but what are the re- 
sults of its influences. This is the point on which 
the Apostle dwells. Unlike the theologian, who would 
treat this world as nothing, or the worldly man, who 
would make it everything, the Apostle Paul goes at 
once to the true point, and shows that, while this 
world is transient, it is shaping the destinies of what 
is eternal, and is of corresponding importance. Our 
afflictions are but for a moment, but they may work 
out an exceeding and eternal weight of glory. The 
outward man may perish, and the inward man be 
renewed day by day. " And we know," he says, 
" that if our earthly house of this tabernacle be dis- 
solved, we have a building of God, an house not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens." That is, 
this World, fleeting as it is, may help the soul to a 
permanent, eternal, spiritual good. The lesson which 
the Apostle inculcates then is, not merely that the 



228 



A PASSING WORLD 



world is or is not transitory, but that this passing 
world leaves permanent impressions. This world 
which fleets by as a cloud or stream, changing and 
vanishing while we look, leaves impressions on the 
soul that have the seal and stamp of immortality. 
Here is a principle much more important for us to 
consider than the transitory character of life. Tran- 
sient as the world is, it is a school in which the soul 
is taking lessons for eternity. 

The things that are unseen are the things which 
are eternal. That which lasts, is not that which the 
eye sees. Hovel and palace alike crumble. Wealth, 
though piled high as mountains, is in a few gen- 
erations dissolved into dust. Works of genius, de- 
cay consumes them, mould touches the canvas, fire 
turns the marble into lime, and the glory of ages is 
a mere legend. The human body dies, and its ashes 
are scattered on the winds and streams. Nations 
and languages and the firmest institutions of man 
perish away. What is permanent ? Nothing that 
the eye looks upon. But hid by this veil of the 
senses is what endures. Behind all, concealed by it 
from our mortal eyes, is the spiritual world. The 
works of God change and pass away, but God him- 
self remains for ever. And he has made the soul to 
be the sharer in his own immortality. And all its 
qualities are permanent. Truth and justice and love 
endure. Holiness will remain undimmed, when the 
light of the stars shall expire. Nor less when the 
soul has degraded itself does it exist for ever. The 
things unseen only are eternal. All else passes 
away, changes, and perishes. The real value of all 



LEAVES PERMANENT IMPRESSIONS. 229 



we possess, then, must depend on its relations to the 
soul, and the unseen things of the spiritual world. 
And here we see how. 

Again, this world may be of infinite importance 
to us, however transitory in itself. While this world 
passes away, it leaves permanent impressions on 
what lasts for ever. This is the great law of God, — 
that in a changing world, and by its aid, the soul is 
trained for an immortal life. Take those who have 
arrived at middle age, and all that ivas their world in 
early life has gone like a dream. Their companions 
are scattered, or are no more ; the scenes in which 
they lived are changed ; death has broken the bond 
of kindred ; parents are, perhaps, in their graves ; 
their early homes are in the hands of strangers, or 
fallen into decay till the very hearth-stones cannot 
be found. The fields and trees and waters are no 
longer the same, and the places that knew them 
once know them no more. All is changed and 
gone ; and yet not gone, but by a strange alchemy 
transmuted into a spiritual form, and left imperish- 
ably in the soul. All these things have left perma- 
nent impressions behind them, which not even death 
and a change of worlds can efface. You are what 
you are, because the transient influences of that 
home were what they were. Those that there loved 
you, though dead, yet speak. In the purer tastes of 
your heart, the tastes nurtured in your home linger. 
In the impulse to duty, your mother's voice is heard. 
The just and generous purpose is not so much yours, 
as the reviving in you of a father's liberality and 
magnanimity. In the ear of memory, and mingling 

20 



230 



A PASSING- WORLD 



with its best thoughts, the leaves of the trees which 
spread their arch over your childhood still whisper, 
and the fire-light glows on the hearth, and the sky of 
that early time, with its clouds and its stars, still 
shines. The words of parents were lost in the air, 
their lips nave long been silent ; but the notions of 
duty and the conceptions of providence taught by 
those fleeting words have entered into the soul to 
abide there for ever, — the perpetual miracle, — a 
transient breath nurturing an eternal principle. 

A changeable world makes permanent impres- 
sions. The aged man relates the events of his early 
manhood. He was prosperous, he met with reverses, 
he endured hardships, he had competitions, and 
struggles, and joys, and disappointments ; but all 
have now gone. To him even they seem afar off, 
and he speaks of them as the mariner in the home 
of old age tells the events of some long-past voyage. 
They have gone, and yet not one of these events 
but has left a print on the soul. He is what he now 
is, because of what he then did or forbore. The 
way in which he met transient temptations, passing 
duties, left a stamp, left a mark in his soul for ever. 
Geologists have discovered in the rocks footprints 
of a huge race of birds, which had perished from the 
earth before the first roaming savage had passed 
through the wilderness. The transient footprints 
were made in a soil which yielded like clay, but the 
soil hardened into stone, and still preserves, in what 
is now the solid rock, the impressions. So joys and 
sorrows, self-denials and self-indulgences, and trials 
and labors, though they themselves pass away, all 



LEAVES PERMANENT IMPRESSIONS. 



231 



make their impressions on the yielding heart of man, 
and the heart hardens, and retains them, and will re- 
tain them for ever. 

A passing world leaves permanent impressions. 
You may have seen the dry bed of some river, whose 
channel has been changed. The waters no longer 
flow between their ancient banks. They have passed 
away ; yet there are still the shelves of sand, hardly 
covered by vegetation, and there are the rocks worn 
smooth and round by the constant motion of the 
waters, and there they will remain. The tide of 
ocean rises and sinks ; the waves dash up against 
the rock-bound coast, and are beat back, and disap- 
pear in the mighty abyss of the seas. It is inces- 
sant change, the type and image of the transient, 
and yet their impressions are left on all the dark 
length of the cliffs. Not only on the sandy shore 
are they found, but in the sides of these rocky walls 
the waves have worn fissures and caves, where the 
waters dash and foam, and the echoes resound, and 
the sea-birds scream for ever. So do the flowing 
streams, the breaking seas of time, wear into the 
ever-during heart of man, and leave impressions for 
eternity. 

A changing world makes permanent impressions. 
How much that at the time passes away and is for- 
gotten as of no moment casts seeds of sorrow or 
joy into the heart, which bear fruit as long as one's 
being lasts ! The transient petulances and unkind- 
nesses in a family may seem of little consequence ; 
it may be but an unkind word, which passes away 
on the wind, and is heard no more ; but it leaves its 



232 A PASSING WORLD 

impression, and if often repeated leaves an indelible 
impression, on the tempers both of those who speak 
and those who hear. In time such words irritate 
and alienate, and chill the affections, till the mem- 
bers of the same household cease to look to each 
other for sympathy, and, while they dwell together, 
are no longer one. Whence does a child get its in- 
delible respect for truth, and justice, and generosity, 
and piety ? It is by seeing those around it, in com- 
mon acts, in daily duties, just and kind and true and 
reverential. Unawares, and unthought of, in this 
common daylight of passing events, these immortal 
qualities have been daguerreotyped on the heart. 
There are many duties which belong to you to do, 
but ease, convenience, self-indulgence, are in the 
way, and you say, These duties are of small account ; 
the world will go on without my giving myself this 
trouble. Yes, the world will go on, and none of us 
are so important but what both mankind and Provi- 
dence could dispense with us altogether. But there 
is something else also which will go on. This 
yielding to a self-indulgent love of pleasure, or ease, 
to the neglect of the most trifling thing that you 
know to be a duty, will make you more selfish and 
more self-indulgent. A debasing pleasure passes 
away before the lamps which witnessed it burn out. 
but it leaves behind on the soul a stain which does 
not pass away. Perhaps it is a youth who says: 
" These pleasures. are not precisely right. I should 
not like to have these things generally known of me. 
I should not like a habit of the kind, but they will 
do no great harm, if I indulge myself. Why should I 



LEAVES PERMANENT IMPRESSIONS. 233 

not ? M I will tell you why* It is not because you 
will certainly form a corrupt habit. It is not be- 
cause you will lose caste, nor be troubled by re- 
morse, for many persons, unawares, get below the 
level of remorse* He that can feel a true remorse is 
not far from the kingdom of heaven. But the rea- 
son is this. Vicious indulgences degrade the char- 
acter ; they lower the tone of feeling, of thought, of 
moral judgment. The heart is chilled down to the 
temperature of that stream of vicious pleasure in 
which it is bathed. The early dissipations may 
come to an end and pass away, but they leave their 
mark. Their influence is seen years after, in a 
coarser and more self-indulgent tone of feeling, in 
intolerant and suspicious judgments, in a general 
lowering of the character. The vicious dissipations 
may be left behind, but nothing but repentance and 
Heaven's mercy can efface the debasing stains which 
they have left. Why, according to your opportu- 
nity, should you be generous, true, ready to do your 
full part in all good works ? Because the not being 
so will leave your character poor, and thin, and nar- 
row, and sordid. Because, cover it up as much as 
you can, that will be your doom, and because you 
cannot afford to lose your one chance of being a 
just, liberal, true-hearted man. Youmrust be so, not 
only because each act influences others, but because 
it reacts on yourself to confirm the spirit which 
prompted it. The revengeful act may or may not 
harm another, but it will certainly sink that bad pas- 
sion deeper into your own heart. A self-denying 
labor or generous help may or may not fail of its 
20* 



234 



A PASSING WORLD 



outward end, but it will strengthen the generous 
sentiment within you. The trains of thought, the 
merest day-dreams in which one indulges, though 
transitory as dreams, like a healthful or sickly cli- 
mate, leave behind the seeds of health or disease. 
Useful labors, and generous self-denials, put vigor 
and fortitude and generosity into the soul. The 
temptations of business faithfully met, leave behind 
a higher rectitude. The days of trial in a home, the 
watchings and anxieties and mutual cares and com- 
mon griefs soon themselves pass away, but, faithfully 
met, they leave behind, in the souls of all, stronger 
affections and a holier and immortal faith. The 
world passes away, but in passing nourishes what is 
lasting, as the transient sunshine and shower nour- 
ish the twig which shall outlive a century of such 
changes, growing up into an oak, whose broad arms 
hang out a shadow in the summer's heat, and defy 
the tempests that beat upon the shore, and bear the 
thunders and the power of a nation across the seas. 

It is this view which gives dignity and purpose to 
our mortal life. It were a sufficient refutation of 
the worldly and sceptical view of man's existence, 
that it makes it frivolous and meaningless. It de- 
bases and belittles this world, by making everything 
of it. If here is the end, if after a few years all is 
to be over, and we could be certain of it, if we labor 
to-day only to get food on which to labor to-morrow, 
if all aims and enterprises and hopes and attain- 
ments go down into the grave, then he who will 
look the facts in the face is almost compelled to 
repeat the words of the wise man of old, " Vanity 



LEAVES PERMANENT IMPRESSIONS. 235 

of vanities, all is vanity." It is only because we are 
not quite sure that all ends here, that a certain awe 
and mystery, and dignity, like the pillar of fire and 
of cloud, attend this life-march through the wilder- 
ness. And yet we live by the sceptical theory. 
That is to say, we measure the success, prosperity, 
welfare of life, by its outward results. How many 
persons are made desponding by the gradual decay 
of a generous or a devout spirit, compared with those 
who despond because their fortunes decay? And 
yet how superficial and transient the outward re- 
sults of life to the individual, if these be all. In the 
forum and senate- house men struggle for place and 
power, and armies crush the earth with triumphant 
chariot-wheels, and mighty fleets wait on the wants 
of august cities ; but all that is greatest among men 
soon fades away. Old age dries up the voice of 
eloquence, and the chariots of triumph are broken, 
and armies of power disappear like the sinking dust 
on the road they travel, and the breath of God but 
passes for a moment in anger over the seas, and 
argosies freighted down with the treasures of the 
earth, and with the richer freight of human hearts, 
are swept like bubbles from the deep. History is 
but a succession of epitaphs on the greatness that 
has passed. Still sadder does it seem when we de- 
scend to humble life. How vain it is without relig- 
ious faith! To toil that we may live, and to live 
that we may toil, — brief hours of joy broken up by 
alternating trials, — to labor for the fruits of enjoy- 
ment till the season of enjoyment is gone, — to sow 
and reap, and buy and sell, to rack the mind, and 



236 



A PASSING WORLD 



task the heart, till year after year glides by, and this 
"fitful fever" is quieted in the grave, — this is life. 
Worldliness complains that religion casts gloom 
over this world. If so, what does worldliness do ? 
To him who thinks only of the outward results, 
these outward results even become paltry, so soon, 
at farthest, do sickness and death come in to equal- 
ize all. 

But this is not all. Behind this transient scaffold- 
ing, and through its aid, is rising an immortal fab- 
ric. Parallel with the outward life goes on a corre- 
sponding inward life ; and while the outward results 
soon perish, the inward results belong to that which 
is life everlasting. These illustrations explain the 
stress which the Saviour lays on whatever helps or 
hurts the spiritual life. They explain his idea of 
retribution. The evil of sin is not that it darkens 
one's earthly prospects, but that it darkens the soul. 
Therefore better pluck out the right eye, or cut off 
the right hand, than be led by them into sin. Bet- 
ter lose the world, than gain it at the cost of the 
soul. Better be Lazarus with a Christian spirit, 
than the rich man without it. The most terrible 
idea of retribution is, that it is the unfolding of evil 
tastes and principles into their legitimate results. 
The outward act recoils on the character, and strikes 
in and establishes the retribution in the essential be- 
ing of a man. 

In everv outward act, in every yielding or resist- 
ance, we are giving strength to something good or 
something bad within us. A new stroke is struck 
on the marble, a new line drawn on the canvas. 



LEAVES PERMANENT IMPRESSIONS. 



237 



It is not one great act, but these incessant impres- 
sions, that make us what we are. He who in the 
great peril deserts his post, and he who sinks with 
his ship, have all their lives before been preparing 
themselves for that last act of treachery to manhood? 
or triumph of loyalty. Each bad act blends in its re- 
sults with the stream of our being to give it a darker 
hue. Each good purpose faithfully kept is a thread 
of gold in the texture of life. 

We look on a man now, and compare him with 
what he was years ago. He is changed, and yet so 
gradually, that from month to month, and from year 
to year, we have marked no change. He himself is 
unconscious of change. It has been the slow result 
of successive impressions, made day by day, by 
pains and pleasures, by trials and labors, which, like 
drifting clouds, have all passed away, while the im- 
pressions they were permitted to make still remain, 
ineffaceable in the character. "Woe be to him who 
yields to the evil influences that surround him. The 
corrupt pleasure, the unjust profit, the acts which 
minister to unholy passions, these may pass away, 
but they have imprinted their own character on the 
soul which is immortal; and in time they appear. 
They manifest themselves in the general character. 
They stamp the features, and look out of the eye, 
and give its tones of emotion to the voice. They 
enslave the man. They transform him, till he hardly 
knows himself, and as dread* accusers or witnesses go 
forward before him to the judgment. 

The story is told of an artist, who, meeting a child, 
as he thought, the most beautiful he ever saw, wished 



238 



A PASSING WORLD 



to preserve its features, lest he might never look on its 
like again. He painted it, and hung it on his wall, 
. and it became to him in his hours of trouble or pas- 
sion a perpetual reminder of gentleness, and serenity, 
and heavenly innocence. He said, " If I can find a 
being that will answer for a perfect contrast to the 
child, — one whose face expresses my worst concep- 
tions of that which is vile, and brutal, and guilty, — 
I will paint his portrait also, the companion of this, 
the contrast of heaven and hell." 

Years passed, and he saw no one sufficiently 
hideous to answer his design. At length in a dis- 
tant land, in a prison which he visited, stretched on 
a floor of stone, he saw an object such as his fancy 
had portrayed. A man whose soul was stained 
with blood, with glaring eyes, and haggard face, 
and demoniac rage, cursing man and blaspheming 
God, lay chained, waiting for his execution. The 
artist transferred his likeness to the canvas, and 
placed it opposite the child's. The contrast was 
complete. It was the angel and the fiend. His 
fanciful dream of many years was thus fulfilled. 

Curiosity led him to seek out the history of both, 
and he was startled with the discovery that both 
the portraits he had made were of the same indi- 
vidual being. Side by side, we are told, those pic- 
tures hang on the walls of an ancient gallery in 
Italy. 

Need we cross the ocean to meet with their coun- 
terpart, or to learn the lesson uttered from that 
speechless canvas ? Around us, step by step, and 
day by day, how many neglected ones, and how 



LEAVES PERMANENT IMPRESSIONS. 239 

many self-neglected, are going through the same 
change, — the blooming youth preparing for a de- 
based age, — the fair morning collecting the clouds 
that shall darken the sunset ! How many, exposed 
to all the corrupting influences in the lanes and 
alleys of penury and misery, are unawares losing 
the angel and becoming the fiend ! Nay, not these 
alone, but you, you yourself, in the duty, in the 
pleasure, in the temptation that stands next before 
you, are to strengthen a virtue which allies you with 
heavenly beings, or to put in a dark line whose colors 
are drawn from the abyss. The pleasure, the pain, 
the outward act, and the outward result will pass 
away ; to-morrow you may not remember it ; but 
according as you meet it, it will make an impression 
not to pass away. The outward world changes, the 
inward impression remains. What is seen may be 
temporal, but there is that within you, unseen, your- 
self, which is eternal. 



SERMON XVII. 



AUTHORITY. 

FOB. HE TAUGHT THEM AS ONE HAVING AUTHORITY. — Matt. vii. 29. 

Religious difficulties and the tendencies of re- 
ligious speculation change with every generation. 
Three quarters of a century ago, scepticism took the 
direction of materialism, and atheism. It was full 
of the spirit of denial and scoffing. It trampled on 
Christianity, and strove to rid the world of it, as an 
enemy to human peace and human good. The form 
which doubt now takes is entirely changed. It does 
not deny the truth of the great principles of Chris- 
tianity, but only that they possess any peculiar or 
supernatural authority. It comes in the shape of an 
affirmative philosophy, which undertakes to estab- 
lish on more legitimate grounds, to a considerable 
extent, the same principles which the Christian be- 
lieves on the authority of revelation. It takes its 
stand under the shadow of the altar. It patronizes 
Christianity, considers it the best religion the world 
has seen. But it assumes that human intelligence 
has reached a higher level of truth than Christianity 
reached ; assumes that the higher intelligence of the 



AUTHORITY. 



241 



world has outgrown Christianity, and does not need 
it, — is able to sit in judgment on it, to overlook it, 
to measure its limitations, and map out its deficien- 
cies, and to supply its place with that which includes 
a larger amount of truth; It does not scoff, but sets 
Christianity aside, as something which, though con- 
taining much admirable truth, is comparatively obso- 
lete and outgrown. 

To meet this form of doubt, something different 
is needed from what was needed fifty or a hundred 
years ago. Such works as those of Paley and Lard- 
ner and Butler may be conclusive as to the points 
which they discuss, but they do not discuss the points 
which now disturb the minds of men. It is not that 
the difficulties of our time are greater, but only that 
they are different. The answers to Paine and Vol- 
taire may be satisfactory in themselves, but they do 
not meet the precise want of the day. 

The Christian records claim for Christianity a 
special and supernatural authority. I do not here 
ask respecting the historical evidence of this author- 
ity, for I do not imagine that the religious difficulties 
of many lie here. But what I would show is this : 
that there is nothing inconsistent with the general 
order of Providence in the fact that religious truth 
should be taught authoritatively.; — that the most 
cultivated age needs this authority as much as the 
most ignorant ; — and that such a religion, taught in 
this method, accords equally with man's wants and 
God's providence. 

Constituted as man is, the only way in which we 
can have assurance of the fundamental truths of 
21 



242 



AUTHORITY. 



religion is through revelation, and this must rest on 
authority. I say, constituted as man is; — for it is 
asserted, on the contrary, that they are intuitive 
truths, coming within the range of human conscious- 
ness, and therefore that no revelation is needed. As 
the whole question of authority turns very much on 
this point, it deserves particular consideration. For 
if the great truths of religion are not intuitive truths, 
that is, not depending on any arguments or facts 
behind themselves, but necessarily seen to be true 
the moment they are presented intelligibly to the 
mind, and if they are the most important of all 
truths, we have in these facts strong reason for ex- 
pecting them to be taught by revelation. That they 
do not belong to the facts of consciousness seems 
evident from several reasons 

These truths relate in no small part to what is ex 
ternal to the mind. Take the most important, foi 
example the paternal character of God. Who will say 
that we know intuitively what the Divine character 
is ? Who will class it among facts of consciousness ? 
I am conscious of what takes place in my own 
mind, but certainly I am not conscious of what is 
taking place in the mind of God. I do not say but 
what man might have been so constituted that he 
should have had an intuitive knowledge of this truth, 
but certainly he is not so constituted. When the 
question is raised, instead of thinking that the mere 
statement of the truth, as must be the case if it were 
intuitive, contains in itself the strongest evidence of 
it, we look about for other evidence. We look at 
those manifestations of the Divine character which 



AUTHORITY. 



243 



are to be found in the world, and in the general or- 
der of Providence. It is a question of evidence ; — 
not an intuitive truth, but a matter of fact, deduced 
from other truths. Except for the disclosures which 
God has made of himself, through the natural world 
or through the Scriptures, we should have no knowl- 
edge of it Again, if it were a fact of consciousness, 
it must have been generally recognized over the 
world. There could be no great diversity of opinion 
about an intuitive truth, any more than about a 
mathematical axiom ; and yet the truth has scarcely 
been recognized in the least, further than it has been 
taught by Christianity. 

Just so with the doctrine of a future state. That 
I exist now is a fact of consciousness, but that I 
shall exist beyond the grave is no more a fact of 
consciousness, than that I shall be alive here next 
week, or next year. Still less are the modes and 
laws of that future existence, which give character 
and value to it, facts of consciousness. 

Again, that these are not truths of consciousness, 
and that if we are to have any assurance respecting 
them it must rest on authority, is evident from the 
tested inability of the human mind to reach settled 
and just convictions on these subjects. It is certain 
that the ignorant have not had such convictions. If 
intuition can help man to no better ideas of God 
and a future life than it did the Scandinavian and 
the Tartar, or than it does the African and Austra- 
lian, it surely is insufficient for any practical end. 
Nor has it led the cultivated nearer to the truth. 
Even with Cicero, in spite of all he wrote on the 



244 



AUTHORITY. 



subject, it is uncertain whether he did or did not 
believe in man's immortality. The religion which 
embraces more millions than any other is Panthe- 
istic, and rejects the idea of individual existence 
hereafter. There may be implanted in man's nature 
those presentiments and tendencies which have ena- 
bled him to hope the truth, but not enough to arrive 
at just and settled convictions. 

But it may be said, that it is because the intui- 
tive faculty has been dull and blind ; that, had men 
been morally pure, these truths would have been 
instantly perceived. But men have not been thus 
pure, and a knowledge of these truths has been es- 
sential to raise them to that level from which they 
could be independently perceived ; so that, admitting 
the existence of this intuitive faculty, the practical 
importance of revelation remains as great as ever. 

And finally, as a matter of fact, the world owes 
its faith in these truths to the authoritative decla- 
rations of Christianity. How many of us owe our 
faith to our intuitions, or our reasonings ? We be- 
lieve, mainly, because we had the blessed privilege 
of being taught in childhood on authority, by those 
who themselves believed on the authority of Christ. 
We may suppose that six thousand years have 
tested the power of the human consciousness to 
discover truth, and certainly the experience of six 
thousand years proves that, if mankind at large are 
to have any just faith in the great truths of religion, 
they must be taught those truths, and taught them 
on authority. 

Man is so constituted, that certain great questions 



AUTHORITY. 



245 



are forced on him, have always been forced on him, 
respecting God, futurity, death, retribution, destiny. 
The great questions ; — Are we as a matter of fact, 
without revelation, competent to answer them satis- 
factorily ? Is philosophy competent to take the 
place of Christianity ? It is often assumed to be 
more than competent. How far has it made good 
its vaunting pretensions ? ' What have philosophers 
done towards giving the world settled religious con- 
victions? Their attempts to construct systems of 
faith have been utter failures, one system crowding 
out another, one wave plashing up after another, 
again to sink back into the abyss. From Plato 
down, philosophy has endeavored in vain to furnish 
man with a satisfactory faith on these points. What 
is more, it makes no progress towards this result. 
The philosophers of modern Europe are no nearer 
to it than Plato. There is as little agreement 
among themselves, as few settled conclusions, as 
among the sages of Greece. Were Christianity 
done away, and a congress of philosophers called, to 
determine wha,t the settled truths relating to man 
and God are, it would surely be no congress of 
peace. There would be no points of agreement. 
Any new religion which they would substitute must 
leave, as open questions, the being of God and the 
immortality of man. 

And yet the craving for knowledge, and the ne- 
cessity of it for a right life, remain the same as ever. 
If this appetite of the soul, which must be supplied 
in order that the soul may live, cannot be met by the 
intuitions of the individual mind, nor by the reason- 

21 * 



246 



AUTHORITY. 



ings of philosophy, we almost instinctively look to 
the only remaining source of light, an authoritative 
revelation. 

But it is said, that, though Christianity might be 
essential to ruder and more ignorant times, the ad- 
vancing intelligence of the world has reached a point 
where it is no longer needed. I reply, that the power 
to apprehend moral truth depends mainly on the 
sensibility and activity of the moral faculties, and 
that the mere increase of intelligence, — a knowledge 
of the sciences, of the arts, of literature, — though it 
may help to dispel illusions, by no means of neces- 
sity makes one quick to apprehend the truths of 
morals and religion. There have been periods of 
high intellectual culture, when men seemed to have 
lost all idea of anything above the senses. 

But beyond this, advancing intelligence, instead 
of supplying the place of revelation, only makes it 
more essential. Just in the same degree as mind 
and heart are developed, and man understands his 
own nature, the great questions relating to God, to 
futurity, and to the Divine government assume a 
constantly increasing importance. The brute has no 
foresight, even of death. The brutish man has little 
forethought of it, and little thought of anything ex- 
cept what may gratify his passions or appetites. 
The Australian savage, prowling amidst his marsh- 
es, is little disturbed by those questions which 
take hold on the invisible ; but to Socrates, and to 
Plato, these are the questions of supreme impor- 
tance. Just as men rise above a mere animal life, 
these questions of man's spiritual relations press 



AUTHORITY. 



247 



with a heavier burden, with more solemn and mys- 
terious meanings, upon the soul. As the affections 
are more developed, the terrible mystery of death 
clouds over the world with darker gloom, and the 
increasing sensitiveness of the conscience makes 
the existence of a God, and the conditions of his 
approval, of more momentous import ; while in the 
same degree as the mind looks beyond the present, 
the final destiny of man fills a larger space in the 
circle of thought. 

And yet the progress of intelligence, which forces 
men to ask these questions respecting God and fu- 
turity, is utterly unable to answer them. It may be 
sure that beyond human vision revolve undiscov- 
ered orbs of truth, but it only knows enough to long 
for a higher knowledge. And thus in heathen lands, 
ancient or modern, the men who devoted their lives 
to searching for these truths, which they desired to see, 
but saw not, — who sought them from the oracles, 
from the silent heavens, from the grave, and in sad 
explorations of their own. hearts, — have been men 
of the largest and noblest natures. These questions 
have not troubled the base and sordid, but the wise 
and the good, the lovers of justice and the lovers 
of their race. These have been the men who have 
cried out for light, who have implored the heavens 
that some voice might speak to the blind and strag- 
gling heart of man ; some voice with authority to 
declare the truths of eternity, and of God. And 
that voice has spoken, and the reason that we are 
not tortured with the doubts that oppressed the an- 
cient world is, that to us have come the words of the 
Son of God. 



248 



AUTHORITY. 



But I go further, and say that this authoritative 
communication of religious truth is in accordance 
with the general method by which Providence carries 
forward the progress of man. The child lives on au- 
thority. The child, whose parents should leave it to 
discover every truth by its own unaided exertions, 
would be defrauded of the holiest privilege and right 
of childhood. The order of Providence is, that chil- 
dren shall be under the care of those who know more 
than themselves, know more than they can compre- 
hend, and whose a flections shall make them anxious 
to communicate this superior knowledge. Were 
it not for this transmitted truth, handed down from 
the aged to the young, and received in great part on 
authority, the world would relapse into barbarism. 
We see in that disposition to be prejudiced in favor 
of the opinions of parents, and of the wise and good 
generally, — in the ready facility with which the child 
adopts, without appreciating them, the ideas of those 
it loves and honors, — we see in human nature itself, 
a preparation for this authoritative instruction. In- 
deed, in our common life, how many of the truths 
by which we live did we at first receive, except on 
authority ? We do not expect to understand every- 
thing ourselves, and rely on the authority of those 
who, we think, have a better wisdom to guide us. 
The sick man leans on the authority of the phy- 
sician. Society exists through the authoritative de- 
cisions of courts of justice. On board the myriad 
barks which with white wings cross and recross 
each other on the seas, and which steer through sun- 
shine, and through night, with certainty, each to its 



AUTHORITY. 



249 



haven, how many were competent to have discov- 
ered those laws and principles and rales by which 
the ship is navigated ? Nay, how many are unable 
to understand more than the simple rule itself, who 
accepted it first on authority, and who, if they could 
not have relied on authority, would never have dared 
to leave the coast ? Once in an age, some great phil- 
osophic mind appears, who discovers some new truth, 
and from him, received by mankind at large on au- 
thority, it becomes the property of all men. In most 
cases, before we act, we do not think it necessary 
to understand all the reasons from which a truth is 
deduced. We only require that some one, who 
teaches it to us, shall give evidence that he under- 
stands. In the same way, those religious truths 
from all certainty respecting which we are excluded 
by the limitation of our faculties, Almighty God 
teaches by authority, teaches through his Son. And 
this method is not only the order of Providence, but 
it is the way in which the world is bound benig- 
nantly together by kindly bonds of mutual need and 
aid, — children to parents, the young to the aged, the 
ignorant to the wise, the present to the past, and all 
men to Him who is the Light and the Life of all. 
Could we be rid of all authoritative teaching, and the 
corresponding confidence which gives it value, we 
should go far to break up the most humanizing re- 
lations, and to insulate each individual in a little, 
exclusive, repellent circle of egotism and selfishness. 

Let us give God thanks, that he deals by us bet- 
ter than we, in our narrow vanity, should deal by 
ourselves. Give God thanks that you are able to 



250 



AUTHORITY. 



put confidence in others, that you can lean on au- 
thority. For it is thus that, in our blindness, we 
can use the eyes of those who see ; that we are able 
to profit from the wisdom of sages, and to make the 
accumulated experience of the past, as it were, our 
own. And above all, let us thank God that those 
great central truths of religion, equally essential to 
all, but of which the wisest could give no certain 
assurance, have been taught in such a way, that the 
most ignorant may be guided in them, and that the 
humblest child and the wisest man may walk safely 
in their unfailing light. Blessed be God, that, in this 
voyage over the sea of life, we have not merely our 
earthly charts, but the stars of heaven, to guide 
us ! 

Thus far I have attempted to show that this teach- 
ing of religious truth by authority is in accordance 
with the needs of man and the order of Providence. 
The truth of all this is attested by historical results. 
Hold up and unroll the map of the world, and there 
dates from Christianity a new civilization. "With 
Christ a new element was introduced into human so- 
ciety, — an element of light, which has been steadily, 
if slowly, wherever it has reached, changing the as- 
pect of the world. The best and most hopeful ele- 
ments of human progress come from the Christian 
faith. But its power over the passions, the interests, 
and the institutions of mankind has not come solely 
from its truth, capable of being sustained by human 
logic, but from the fact that the truth was supposed 
to be taught under divine sanctions. Suppose that 
Christ had spoken simply as a philosopher, a Jewish 



AUTHORITY. 



251 



Plato, or Socrates, or Epictetus. Who believes that 
his religion would have held the place which it has 
held in the world ? How much should we have 
known of it ? No : it was received at first, because 
He who taught it was understood to " speak with au- 
thority." The early ages accepted it, because they 
believed the teacher was the Son of God. Christ's 
words have had influence over the wise and good, 
and over the depraved and the ignorant, because 
they were thought to be divine words. You and I 
respect the Bible as we do no other book, because 
it is invested with a mysterious and sacred charac- 
ter, which no other book possesses. It is not a hu- 
man philosophy which created a Sabbath to break 
in on the career of the worldly and sensual, which 
has built churches over the earth, which has awak- 
ened philanthropy from its sleep, which has put re- 
straints on the strong, breathed courage into the 
weak, and shed hope into the shadows of death. It 
is not a human philosophy which has done this, but 
a religion believed to be divine. Remove this divine 
authority, and all the civilization which has been 
built upon it must crumble away with the founda- 
tion on which it has rested. It is not Christ, the 
wise and good man, who has so changed the world, 
but Christ revered as the Mediator between God 
and man, — Christ, the Son of God ; not the human 
liberator, but the Divine Redeemer. 

There is a picture in which, on the lower level, are 
seen on the hills and in the valleys the representa- 
tives of the great trials of the world. They are 
looking up towards a central point of light. The 



252 



AUTHORITY. 



blind turn towards it their sightless eyeballs. The 
mother kneeling over her dying child looks upward 
to it. The slave in his chain looks up to it. And 
they who are setting forth on heroic enterprises for 
human good look up to it. As you raise your eye, 
you perceive that to which they look. Over the 
centre of the picture hangs a cross, from w T hich the 
picture is lighted. In the light which streams from 
it, they who are below live. But that dark object is 
not self-lighted. As you look still higher, you per- 
ceive that beams from heaven centre upon it, and, 
as it were a central sun, the rays are thence dis- 
tributed over the world. It is not the cross merely, 
but the cross connected with heaven, which enlight- 
ens the earth. And so it is that Christ, because he 
speaks to us from God, is the " Way and the Truth 
and the Life." He has transmitted to us no argu- 
ments for particular truths. He only gave that evi- 
dence which warrants us in relying upon his author- 
ity to declare the truth. 

There have been ages of scepticism, and there 
have beeri ages of unreasoning faith. The great 
lesson for us to learn is not how to believe every- 
thing, nor how to doubt, but where and how to put 
a reasonable trust. The highest practical wisdom is 
to find first where trust is deserved, and then with 
an unfaltering heart to repose it there. The spirit 
of scepticism is essentially narrow, and belittling. 
A wise confidence puts us into relations with all the 
wisdom and truth and excellence in the world. 
And in whom shall we trust but in Christ, the Son 
of Man, and the Son of God ? The experience of 



AUTHORITY, 



253 



eighteen hundred years has proved that it is safe to 
trust in him. The guilty in their penalties, the self- 
sacrificing in their martyrdoms, the child and the 
aged man, the tempted, the sick, and the dying, bear 
witness that they have never been led astray in fol- 
lowing Christ. His authority is attested by the best 
virtues of earth, and it was borne witness to by mir- 
acles from heaven. It finds a response in the indi- 
vidual heart. Learn then to trust in Christ. You 
do not believe that you can go wrong in following 
him. Then give to him no halting, hesitating con- 
fidence, but let the heart say, " In thee, O Son of 
God, I will trust, and I will follow thee." 



22 



SEEM ON XVIII. 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 

AND KILLED THE PRINCE OF LIFE, WHOM GOD HATH RAISED FROM 
THE DEAD; WHEREOF WE ARE WITNESSES. — Acts ill- 15. 

The resurrection of Jesus is the culminating and 
crowning point of all Christian evidences. It holds 
no second place in our religion. The first sermon of 
Peter, on the day of Pentecost, puts forward as its 
main point the great fact that Jesus, whom they had 
crucified, God had raised from the dead. The last 
words of revelation are an appeal to the risen Sav- 
iour. The Sabbath became the Lord's day, and 
was consecrated to the commemoration of Christ's 
resurrection. Wherever the Apostles preached, it was 
in the name of him who died and rose again. "With 
the Apostles, it was not merely Jesus who died, but 
Jesus now alive, raised from the grave, his mission 
attested by this seal of heaven, Jesus now alive and 
caring for his followers, that was a chief and funda- 
mental truth. It was bis resurrection which, more 
than any other fact, laid an immovable foundation 
for their faith, and gave authority to his teachings, 
while around the risen Saviour centred all their 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 



255 



ideas of heaven. We read the New Testament in 
such a fragmentary way, that we lose sight of the 
relative proportion of events. Of all the facts in 
Christ's life, the resurrection is the one on which the 
Apostles laid most stress after his death. It was 
the great fact and the great doctrine. 

Did they over-estimate its importance ? Do we 
under-estimate its importance ? Have the results 
which have flowed from it been such as we might 
expect from its miraculous character, and the place 
which it holds in Christian history ? 

I propose to trace some of those results as they 
appear in the moral history of mankind, — and with 
two objects : — 

1. To show that the resurrection was, as it is pre- 
sented by the Apostles, essential to the effectiveness 
and success of the Christian dispensation. And 

2. To show that in part these results are of such 
a nature that they cannot be accounted for except 
on the ground that the Apostles were perfectly con- 
vinced of its reality. 

I. In tracing the results of this great transform- 
ing event in the moral history of the world, the first 
and most important consideration is the influence 
which it had on the Apostles and other primitive 
Christians. Most important, because in the influ- 
ence it had on them we see first an evidence of its 
reality, and, secondly, a manifestation of its moral 
power. Jesus had foretold both his death and his 
resurrection. But the minds of the Apostles, not yet 
dispossessed of then ideas of a temporal reign of the 
Messiah, and occupied by the wonderful events then 



256 THE RESURRECTION OE CHRIST. 



occurring, seem scarcely to have thought of these 
predictions till their fulfilment recalled them. Their 
conduct during the last days before the death of 
Jesus is as natural as the narrative of it is artless. 
In those conversations recorded in John, he prepares 
them gradually for it ; he exhorts them to mutual 
love, and to undoubting reliance on God ; he prays 
with them, and for them, in words of such tenderness 
as the ear till then had never heard. On the evening 
of the Passover he partakes with them of the Last 
Supper, — the last time, as he warns them, that they 
shall break -bread with him before his death. And 
from that upper chamber he goes out to the garden 
of Gethsemane, to the agony of its midnight hours, 
to his betrayal and his crucifixion. Through all 
these events the Apostles are as men that are 
stunned, — walking in some strange and terrible 
dream. And such we might expect to be the case. 
For who were they ? A few ignorant, poor, obscure 
men, not one of them possessing a commanding 
spirit, who, following Jesus, had come from the bor- 
ders of the Lake of Galilee up to the great city of 
Jerusalem. There was all of which they stood most 
in awe. There was the temple of Jewish worship ; 
there the Jewish priesthood ; there the court of Her- 
od and of Pilate ; there they beheld the Roman 
legionaries defiling through the streets and garrison- 
ing the strong-holds. They had followed Jesus, 
expecting, as they themselves say, according to the 
Jewish notion, that he would establish a temporal 
kingdom. They were none of them men to take a 
lead. It is singular how, throughout all their con- 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 



257 



versations with Jesus, however affectionate, his 
words are always those of direction and command, 
never those of one counselling with his friends. 

And now a dark shadow comes across their hopes. 
It begins to be evident that Jesus is not to be a 
temporal prince. He is beleaguered by watching en- 
emies. His own words grow more sadly affectionate. 
One of his own disciples betrays him. And now he 
whom they had expected, not to die, but to reign, 
with farewell words of tenderest love yields himself 
to his foes. He is seized by Roman officers, and, 
at the instigation of the Jewish priests and rulers, 
dragged with every circumstance of contumely be- 
fore the Roman tribunal. He is tried and con- 
demned, and crucified by Roman soldiers, men not 
accustomed to perform their work negligently, under 
the supervision of the Jewish rulers and priests, who 
were witnesses that it was done faithfully. At the 
outset, the disciples forsook him and fled ; Peter de- 
nied him in the judgment hall, into which he had 
timidly ventured to enter; and John and a few 
women alone followed him to the cross. 

At his death, the bond that had united his fol- 
lowers was dissolved. Strangers in a vast city, 
timid, powerless, self-distrustful, like frightened 
sheep without a shepherd, they are scattered in dis- 
may. They are utterly dispersed, Jesus is buried, 
and to all human seeming his religion is buried with 
him in the grave. 

In three days' time there is suddenly a wondrous 
change. These ignorant men, lately so timid and 
dependent and self-distrustful, leave their hiding- 
22 * 



258 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 



places and come boldly forward, — not one or two 
leaders, but all of them, not one recreant, — men and 
women alike, the impulsive Peter and loving John.— 
unappalled by the power of the government or fury 
of the mob, ready to devote themselves to the prop- 
agation of the holiest truths, and to the salvation of 
the world from sin, at every personal loss and hazard, 
even that of death. Surely, of all miraculous days 
that was the most wonderful which saw so amazing 
and instantaneous a change in so many persons, of 
such various characters. How will you account for 
it ? Their account is, that Jesus was risen from the 
dead. The circumstances attending their seeing 
him were such as to preclude their being deceived. 
They saw him again and again, separately and to- 
gether, in houses and abroad, by day and by night, 
the disciples and the whole five hundred at once. 
They sat with him, conversed with him, examined 
his person. And this continued forty days, when he 
disappeared, vanishing from before their eyes. If 
such were the facts, they could not have been de- 
ceived, — they must have known whether these 
things did or did not occur before them. And that 
they believed in the resurrection, I think no one can 
doubt ; at any rate, they gave the highest evidence it 
is possible for men to give. Their future lives — 
lives so far as earth was concerned dedicated to his 
unrewarded service, and, if need be, to suffering and 
scorn and death — were determined by this one fact. 
And the object to which they devoted themselves 
was one which only the righteous live for, and which 
it makes a martyr to die for, — the rescue of man 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 



259 



from sin. We do not always consider the over- 
whelming impression the resurrection made on the 
Apostles, nor the place which it occupied in their 
minds as the central fact in the history of then* Mas- 
ter. The first discourse of Peter on the day of Pen- 
tecost all turns on the fact of the resurrection of 
Christ. Each of the Gospels narrates this event 
with a minute particularity which it gives to nothing 
else. The one great predominant topic of apostolic 
preaching is Jesus and the resurrection, — Jesus 
whom God raised from the dead. The extent to 
which the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead 
is made the centre and main topic of apostolic dis- 
course, can be appreciated only by reading the Acts 
and the Epistles. Not only was this great fact never 
doubted then, but of all that number who saw him, 
not one was made to renounce his faith in Christ 
by the terrors and pains of death. They were per- 
secuted, imprisoned, crucified, and yet all held firm 
to the declaration that he who was crucified, and 
dead, and buried, they had afterwards seen alive. 
About some things there was disagreement among 
the first Christians, but none here. And wherever 
the Gospel was carried, the first great topic, which 
embraced everything else, was the resurrection. Be- 
fore the high-priest of the Jews, and on Mars' Hill 
at Athens, the great doctrine insisted on was that of 
the resurrection. Everything is rested on this point. 
" If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, 
and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found 
false witnesses of God ; because we have testified of 
God, that he raised up Christ. If Christ be not 



260 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 



raised, your faith is vain, and they which are fallen 
asleep in Christ are perished. But he is risen from 
the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that 
slept." 

But we should very poorly appreciate the impor- 
tance of this fact, if we regarded it merely- as pro- 
ducing a change in their speculative opinions. It 
wrought the most wondrous moral change the 
world has seen. Only remember what the Apos- 
tles were before Christ's death, — their views bounded 
apparently to the earthly reign of the Messiah. All 
such expectations were of course dissipated by his 
death. The resurrection of Christ, this one fact, 
revolutionized their whole moral being. For it they 
lived and suffered, and not a few of them died. It 
revolutionized all the great motives which controlled 
their lives. Henceforth the present life, its joys and 
fears, are of comparatively small moment to them. 
What an event that must have been to them, which 
could make them cheerfully toil and suffer, for some- 
thing beyond the grave, more than most men are 
willing to toil and suffer for what is this side the 
grave. The inward life is changed even more than 
the outward. The objects for which they labor are 
on the other side of the grave. The joys for which 
they look are on the other side of the grave. The 
rewards of effort, save those that come from an ap- 
proving conscience, the consolation of sorrow, the 
unbounded compensation for all sacrifices, are all on 
the other side of the grave. Nor was it any sensual 
heaven to which they looked. The heathen poet 
found admission to the realm of shades by bearing in 



THE RESURRECTION OP CHRIST. 261 

his hand the branch of a sacred tree. The only road 
which led up to the Christian heaven was the road 
of justice and mercy and love and truth. And all 
this change was wrought by their belief in the res- 
urrection of Christ. What a tremendous fact must 
that have been to them which could so revolutionize 
their moral being ! Imagine their state who could 
really triumph over all the fears of the heart, and the 
pains of the body, and death itself, through their 
belief in a glorious immortality. Some of the sub- 
limest passages in the New Testament are those in 
which this state of mind incidentally appears. Life, 
said heathen philosophy, is like a lamp, lighted a lit- 
tle while and then extinguished. Whatever was be- 
fore death is also after ; we cease to be. li Mourn 
not," said his friend to Solon, on the death of his son, 
" for it is in vain." " Therefore do I mourn," said 
the sage, "because it is in vain." Not so the Apostle 
when he comforted the afflicted. " I would not have 
you ignorant, brethren, concerning those that are 
asleep, — that ye sorrow not as those who have no 
hope. For even as we believe that Jesus died and 
rose from the dead, so also they who sleep in Jesus 
will God bring with him." What words are those of 
his in view of his own death : " I am now ready to 
be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand; 
I have fought the good fight, I have finished my 
course, I have kept the faith ; henceforth there is laid 
up for me a crown of life, which the Lord, the right- 
eous Judge, will give me at that day." These very 
teachings have made so familiar and universal our 
faith in immortality, that we do not appreciate them. 



262 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 



But take the concluding words of Paul's argument 
for a future life, drawn from the resurrection of 
Christ, and remember that they are not the words 
of a rhetorician who in calm security speculates of 
these things, but words expressing truths for which 
he lived and for which he died, and thought it tri- 
umph to die, and where will you find anything that 
contains more of the moral sublime ? " Then this 
corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal 
must put on immortality. And when this corruptible 
shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall 
have put on immortality, then shall be brought to 
pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed 
up in victory. O death, where is thy sting ? O 
grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, 
who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye 
steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the 
work of the Lord, inasmuch as you labor not in 
vain in the Lord." 

And more than this. All their ideas of the nature 
of heaven centred about their risen and ascended 
Master. That heaven for which they hoped, — he 
was the image of its spirit, — a heaven of love and 
purity and peace. They expected to join him there 
and to be with him evermore. The dying Stephen, 
as he looks up, implores him, " Lord Jesus, receive 
my spirit!" One brief moment of agony more, and 
he should be with his Master. The aged John, who 
had seen all his companions perish, who was left 
alone .of them to bear the ministry of reconciliation, 
in the midst of his tender exhortations to his follow- 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 



263 



ers to love one another, breathes for himself the touch- 
ing prayer, " Come, Lord Jesus, come ! " And Paul, 
looking to that house not made with hands, eternal 
in the heavens, would be absent from the body, that 
he may be present with the Lord. 

The peculiar moral effect of the resurrection was 
to give authority and vividness to their faith in a 
future life. And it did this in two ways. First, 
because it was a seal of Christ's authority. They 
who believed in his resurrection would have no 
doubt that he knew whereof he spoke when he 
declared that all the dead should live. And, sec- 
ondly, his presence there, who had assured them that 
he should go before them to provide a place for them, 
gave them the feeling that they had a home where 
their Master was. 

II. The moral influence of this fact was not con- 
fined to the disciples ; but no other event ever tran- 
spired that has had such an influence on the moral 
history of mankind. 

The ancient world, as soon as it began to specu- 
late, began to doubt. There was light enough to 
lead men to ask questions, but not enough to solve 
them. The primitive faith in a future state, whence- 
soever it arose, whether from some forgotten and 
afterwards perverted revelation, or from the natural 
instincts of mankind, did not rest on a foundation 
that would bear being questioned. What evidence, 
they said, that man lives hereafter ? And where 
was the evidence ? Was it in the dim, vague long- 
ings for immortality, or in the capacities of the soul ? 
As we interpret them by the light of Christianity, we 



264 THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 



find in them great confirmation of our faith ; but they 
did not find in them a sufficient foundation. What 
evidence ? No one had returned from that dread 
shore. No one manifestly invested with divine au- 
thority had spoken. No voice had come from heav- 
en, none from the grave. Nature supplied evidence 
for hope, not for faith. Thus over nearly the whole 
of all ancient philosophy, as its last and highest and 
only certain result, is written the word Doubt ! infin- 
ite doubt ! The oracles of religion gave only stam- 
mering and uncertain answers. And from the rocky 
walls of the mausoleums where the dead lay came 
back the dreary echo to the despairing and imploring 
cry of the human heart, Doubt ! The want of assur- 
ance on this essential point affected all views of 
Providence, of man, of duty, of the end and aim of 
of life. Its effect is seen even in the arts. I have 
already referred to some facts illustrative of the faith 
of the ancient word. But far more than these, there 
is nothing that so distinguishes ancient and modern 
poetry as the absence in the one, and presence in the 
other, not of specific declarations, but of the sentiment 
of faith in immortality. Ancient religious poetry is 
a dirge from which the organ tone of hope is left out. 
Here elegiac strains were written by the light of the 
inverted torch. And even sculpture and painting 
occupied themselves with forms of physical beauty 
and strength and struggle, — the beauty and vigor 
and passion that perish for ever in the grave. 

To that heathen world the Apostles went, carrying 
the doctrine of Jesus and the resurrection. I speak 
here only of the influence on men's faith in a future 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 



265 



state. Over the world it put faith instead of doubt, 

— the full-orbed sun, instead of its sickly, disastrous 
eclipse. It carried immortal hope into millions of 
the homes of the wretched and forsaken. It gave 
them objects for life, immortal and immeasurable, of 
which not the arm of the oppressor nor the tyranny 
of the strong, nothing but their sins, could rob them. 
Over the graves of myriad churchyards, where sor- 
row had been none the less bitter because there 
slept the children of the obscure, it was written, He 
is risen ! Every Sabbath morn came, proclaiming, 
He is risen ! Religious poetry became the poetry of 
immortal hope. The greatest works of the painter's 
art are those in which the effort is made to express 
emotions that take hold on immortality. The flat- 
tened roof, the horizontal lines, of the Grecian temple 

— it is but a symbol of the universal change — gave 
place to the Christian spire that towered upward 
toward the stars. It poured new motives and new 
hopes into the soul, and so filled it with aspirations 
that took hold of heaven that multitudes endured 
more to win the crown of martyrdom than they had 
done to secure a Roman triumph. 

However you may account for it, I speak of his- 
torical facts. It is the resurrection of Christ which 
has given to Christendom its faith in immortality. 
Blot out that event from the world's history, and the 
sky is again but a vault of marble, and the earth an 
unbroken grave. It is that event which has bridged 
over the awful gulf between time and eternity. 

May I venture to illustrate its effects by an event 
which fails in nothing except that it does not sug- 



266 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 



gest the magnitude of the change?- Before Colum- 
bus, multitudes had speculated on the probability of 
undiscovered realms in the Western main. Many- 
thought it probable they were there ; but no one 
kneiv. No one had been there and returned. There 
was doubt, not faith. And who on the strength of a 
doubt should tempt the terrors of that unknown sea ? 
In the eyes of all men, the great discoverer was 
little better than a madman. He sailed. Months 
elapsed, and he returned, bringing with him the tale 
of discovery. That one event, — it needed no more, 
— the fact that one declared it who knew whereof he 
affirmed, was enough. It revolutionized Europe. 
From every harbor of her coast slender barks plunged 
fearlessly into the darkness and storms of the Atlan- 
tic. That event bridged over the ocean, dispelled 
its mystery, gave a new continent to the elder world. 

The fact of our Lord's resurrection, and those 
words of his respecting the future which derive their 
authority from this, have uncurtained the heavens. 
Like the gazing Apostles, we look through the open- 
ing clouds through which he ascended. We repeat 
the words, He is risen ! and from the skies comes 
the answer, " I am the resurrection and the life." O 
blessed words of hope and of promise ! The dying 
man, lying faint and spent, amidst pale and weeping 
watchers, repeats, He is risen ! Parents who have 
sat hour by hour through the night gazing on the 
pale, insensible features of their child, and who lay 
in the tomb that sweet form which never before 
knew harder couch than the mother's bosom, write 
over its sleep, It is risen ! He that despairs because 



THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 267 

of the wrongs and sins of earth still looks from this 
wave-washed peninsula of life to heaven. Think 
not this doctrine of the resurrection an unimportant 
one. Still let the heart make its pilgrimages to that 
broken tomb where the hope of man was buried and 
rose again, the pledge and symbol of immortal life 
to man. Thither let the soul go, and the closed and 
clouded eye of faith be couched, that by the super- 
natural light which streams from that scene we 
may see how the ghastly ranks of tombs that cover 
the earth are but the shadows and types of our mor- 
tality, and death but the dark valley through which 
we enter into immortal life. 

u When by a good man's grave I muse alone, 
* Me thinks an angel sits upon the stone ; 

Like those of old, on that thrice hallowed night, 
Who sat and watched in raiment heavenly bright ; 
And with a voice inspiring joy, not fear, 
Says, pointing upward, that he is not here, — ■ 
That he is risen ! n 



SERMON XIX. 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 

AND WHEN HE HAD THUS SPOKEN, HE CRIED WITH A LOUD VOICE, 
LAZARUS, COME FORTH ! AND HE THAT WAS DEAD CAME EORTH. 

— John xi. 43, 44. 

The miracles were an evidence of the divine au- 
thority of Christ ; but they had a purpose very much 
beyond this. It is to this further purpose that I shall 
ask your attention. They were not only an evi- 
dence of truth, but through them the greatest truths 
were taught, and in the most impressive way. The 
extent to which this was the case is best seen by 
examining a single miracle, and no one is better 
suited to this than the one from the account of 
which the text is taken, — the raising of Lazarus. 

From the murderous crowd of Jerusalem, from its 
treachery and violence, Jesus had come to the quiet 
of Bethany, that in the home of friends his wearied 
spirit might have rest. But in the mean time this 
home had been broken in upon by death ; and the 
sisters in their great affliction looked to Jesus. How 
strong his friendship was for this family appears 
from the whole narrative. As soon as the sisters 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 



269 



hear of his approach, they go to meet him, and their 
words are, " If thou hadst been here, our brother had 
not died." They looked to him, not merely as the 
Messiah, but as the nearest and dearest personal 
friend, who will mourn with them for his loss and 
their loss. As he -stood by the grave of Lazarus 
and beheld their sorrow, he himself wept, and the 
Jews around said, " Behold how he loved him ! " 
He showed, in his own character, how the strong- 
est personal friendship may be united with a phi- 
lanthropy which clasps the world, and links realm to 
realm and race to race. And in the person of the 
Son of God, coming thus to Bethany to relieve the 
sorrow of a mourning family, we behold how heaven 
stoops to the earth, how a beneficent Providence 
reaches down with benignant hand to the wants of 
the humblest home and heart. 

This whole passage is illustrative and symbolic of 
the regard which Christianity bestows on the affec- 
tions. We are apt to forget how much of that light 
which illuminates our common life we owe to Christ. 
At first sight, it might seem that the affections must, 
under all circumstances, be much the same. But no 
conclusion could be less in accordance with facts. 
So far as they are merely instinctive, they may re- 
main unchanged from age to age ; but so far as 
they are associated with the general development 
of the spiritual nature, they have been immeasurably 
strengthened, elevated, and purified by Christianity. 
It can hardly be doubted that those even which seem 
most purely instinctive, such as the love of parents 
for children, are far stronger than they were before 

23* 



270 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 



the coming of Christ, — partly because his religion 
has quickened and enlarged the spiritual nature of 
man, and partly for a special reason, namely, the 
more confident faith his religion has given in man's 
immortality. The heathen parent laid the child in 
the grave as if consigning it ta annihilation. The 
common ideas of immortality scarcely embraced 
within their circuit any expectation of the future 
life of children. The parent was compelled to re- 
gard the bond as a temporary one, and the possi- 
bility of its being broken, and for ever, checked and 
chilled the natural outflow of affection. But Chris- 
tianity, through its doctrines of the immortal life and 
the paternal providence, not only infinitely enlarged 
their sphere, but gave them a more spiritual charac- 
ter, and fostered their growth by its holiest hopes. 
The Christian felt no need of restraining them for 
fear of their being broken and lost in annihilation. 
Faith gave to love the wings of the morning to seek 
its cherished objects beyond the starry worlds. The 
affections might be baffled for a time, but were not 
broken, by death, for they were bound up and blend- 
ed with faith in an immortal life, and with trust in a 
beneficent Providence. The common affections that 
are the light and joy of our earthly homes have thus 
been spiritualized, made stronger and illuminated 
with hope by Jesus Christ. 

When we remember these things, and that our 
Saviour's life was but a manifestation of the Divine 
love and the Divine will, his smallest acts become 
full of meaning. When we behold him retiring 
from Jerusalem, from his foes and his labors, for re- 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 



271 



freshment and peace, to this home of friendship in 
Bethany, it seems as if we might hear the Divine 
blessing pronounced over all friendly bonds. This 
plant of earth was then visited with airs of heaven. 
And when the afflicted sisters came to him, confi- 
dent in his sympathy, and he said to them, Thy 
brother shall rise again, — not this man, this human 
being, but thy brother shall rise again, — it is as if 
heaven had spoken to every mourner on earth, Thy 
dead shall live again. God knoweth and hath com- 
passion on thy sorrows. Fear not to love ; let thy 
affections, so that they are pure, soar up to the heav- 
ens and be immortal as the stars, for thy dead live ! 

Another purpose seems to have been to break up 
the tyranny which the visible order of the world ex- 
ercises over the mind. The atheistic idea is that 
these material laws have a kind of separate existence 
of their own, are irreversible and supreme. The 
great question in all ages has been, whether there 
is or is not anything above these laws of nature. 
The tendency has always been to regard the laws of 
nature as final. Carried out to its full results, this 
idea, in excluding God from the control of the world, 
is practically atheistic. The miracles of Christ were 
a visible answer to this materialism and scepticism. 
In them we behold Him who first framed the order 
of the world still present and controlling that order. 
The miracles were a kind of evidence open and in- 
telligible to all men, that above the world there is a 
God ; that the laws of nature are but the methods of 
his providence; that he is not separated from the 
world, but that over it the Lord God omnipotent 



272 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 



reigneth. In accordance with this, at one time or 
another, our Saviour exhibited this power over al- 
most the whole natural world. The laws of nature 
which seem most unchangeable were shown to be 
subject to a higher and an invisible power. "With a 
word, he hushed the rage of the storm ; he supplied 
the famished multitude with bread ; he opened the 
eyes of the blind, and unstopped the ears of the deaf, 
and loosened the tongues of the dumb. The rav- 
ings of insanity were calmed at his bidding. Every 
form of disease melted away before his voice, and 
the sleep of death itself was broken when he spoke. 
These miracles were an evidence to all ages that 
over what we call the laws of nature there is a higher 
law, a superior power, the power of the Framer and 
the God of nature. 

But beyond these general objects, this particular 
miracle, the raising of Lazarus not only discloses 
the divine power with which Christ had been en- 
dowed, but it seems to have had the special object 
of impressing on the minds of his followers a more 
profound sense of the reality of the spiritual world. 
Tt was while standing by the grave of Lazarus, that 
he uttered the memorable words, " I am the resur- 
rection and the life. He that believeth in me, though 
he were dead, yet shall he live. And he that liveth 
and believeth in me shall never die." Those words 
are proclaimed over the grave of every Christian be- 
liever. It is hard for faith to triumph over the decay 
of mortality. In our speculations we fancy that we 
have reached a settled faith ; but a friend dies ; 
every sign of life vanishes ; we lay the body in the 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 



273 



tomb, and in a little while all that is left is a little 
dust that may be gathered up in the hand. Is it 
possible that he still lives ? Faith is ever confronted 
by this visible fact, and the heart longs for some as- 
surance by means of which to overcome the scepti- 
cism of the senses. Once for all He who understood 
the needs of man met the fact of mortality in that 
way which alone could give undoubting confidence 
to faith. He gave, first, the assurance of words, de- 
claring in the strongest terms the reality of the ever- 
lasting life. And then, to meet the misgiving and 
doubt which the senses suggest, he called back him 
who was gone to reanimate the lifeless clay. If in 
our desponding moments of doubt we were to ask 
for evidence of the spiritual life, short of death itself 
and the actual entrance into the spiritual world, I 
think our minds could not conceive of any kind or 
degree of evidence so fitted to meet the doubts which 
press on mankind as that which our Saviour here 
gives. We may fancy that our logic, or our cheap 
phantasmal philosophy, is enough for us ; but it never 
was enough for man, and it fails just where the strain 
of the difficulty comes. We may thank God, that in 
the midst of this world of graves he gives us an evi- 
dence of the reality of another life, according to our 
real wants. 

I say that our Saviour met the precise fact in 
w T hich lies the whole strength of our materialistic 
doubts. Nothing short of something of the kind 
could meet them ; and precisely what was required, 
that he did, and it is from the force and point which 
the miracles of Christ, and finally his own resurrec- 



274 



THE RAISING- OF LAZARUS. 



tion, give, that our philosophical arguments seem to 
us to have any substantial weight. Our reasonings 
wind around these great facts like vines around the 
trunk of a tree which they hide, but on which they 
depend for support. 

He took the extreme case. Lazarus had fallen 
sick and had died. He had already been buried, 
and, as was the custom with the Jews, the friends of 
his sisters had met to mourn with them. Then 
Jesus came. He would visit the grave, and they 
attended him thither. He commanded that the 
stone should be removed from the mouth of the 
tomb. Martha would resist him, saying, " He hath 
already been dead four days." The processes of 
decay had already begun. But "Jesus saith unto 
her, Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldest be- 
lieve, thou shouldest see the glory of God ? Then 
they took away the stone from the place where the 
dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and 
said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. 
And I knew that thou nearest me always ; but be- 
cause of the people which stand by I said it, that 
they may believe that thou hast sent me. And 
when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud 
voice, Lazarus, come forth ! And he that was 
dead came forth." The grave opened and the dead 
lived ! What a word of power was that which had 
dominion over the grave ! And where was the spirit 
of the dead, that it could hear this word of the Son 
of God and obey ? 

Never were there words full of a more sublime 
hope than the declaration, M I am the resurrection and 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 



275 



the life." The truth which they contain, when stated 
from some chair of philosophy, is one of the grandest 
which can occupy the human mind. The argument 
of Paul in defence of it is one of the sublimest por- 
tions of the Bible. But here was something beyond 
our philosophical reasonings. It was in front of the 
tomb, in the presence of the dead, in the presence of 
God to whom he looked up, that he said, " I am the 
resurrection and the life." And having said this, it 
was the same immortal voice which, as he turned to 
the dead, said, " Lazarus, come forth ! " And he that 
was dead came forth. It was God's attestation to 
the authority of his Son. It was a miracle wrought 
for the sick, the mourning, and the dying generations 
of mankind. 

No one can read this passage without having 
thoughts rise up in his mind to awe down the frivol- 
ity of his worldliness. Where are the souls of the 
dead ? A curtain is let down from heaven to earth 
which separates the visible from the invisible. Be- 
fore that curtain stood the friends and neighbors of 
the departed. To their eyes nothing appeared but 
death, and yet on the other side of that mysterious 
screen the spirit of the departed heard that gentle but 
potent voice and obeyed the call. "Where are the 
dead ? Are they separated from us only by the thin, 
mysterious screen of the senses, which, in revealing 
the world of sense, hides the spiritual world, as the 
very light which discloses mountain and tower and 
town hides the stars of heaven ? What is the seem- 
ing void around us but the realm of departed spirits ? 
May we not believe that the many mansions of our 



276 THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 

Father, those spiritual mansions of which our Sav- 
iour spoke, are around us, their ba^es resting on the 
earth and their invisible domes swelling above the 
clouds? Who can believe that this universe is un- 
peopled ? Who shall not rather believe, that, rising 
in ascending ranks, from man to the seraphim, it is 
filled with life which utters forth the praises of God 
in language clearer than that of the stars ? May 
we not believe that, as the dying man lies on his 
couch, and with failing voice bids his friends fare- 
well, on the other side others are waiting, not less 
dear, to welcome him to the immortal life ? The 
Scriptures describe this world of the senses as a 
tabernacle. Can we have a more just idea of it, — 
a tabernacle, a tent, the tent of the senses, — while 
death is but the lifting of one of the sides for the 
spirit to pass out and be consciously in the midst 
of the myriads of spirits that invisibly surround us ? 
It is easy to believe that our Saviour, his eyes 
touched with supernatural light, looked into that 
spiritual world and beheld the spirit of the dead 
when he commanded Lazarus to return, and beheld 
the legions of angels which he assured his disciples 
he had but to ask, and they should be sent to rescue 
him from his foes. The grave has sad lessons, but 
since Christ stood by it, it is visited also by the 
highest hopes. And, seen by the light of his words, 
the earth itself is but a scaffolding which hides from 
us a glorious spiritual temple. 

But these miracles, it is said, are historical. They 
were evidence for those who looked on them, but 
not for us. With what awe, with what believing 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 



277 



and grateful hearts, we think, we should have beheld 
Christ's works of stupendous power ! O that I 
might have witnessed, exclaims some doubting 
Thomas of our own day, these displays of the Di- 
vine presence! Why were miracles, exclaims the 
sceptic, confined to a single age ? Let me behold 
with mine own eyes, and I will believe. 

Unto such I would say, Behold ! for the days of 
miracles are not yet passed. The miracles of Judsea 
did not terminate in themselves. They were the 
introduction of a new order ; the fountain whose 
stream was to flow down through successive ages ; 
the roots of a tree which, though themselves hidden, 
should bear fruit for all coming time. They mis- 
take who regard the miracles as merely isolated 
facts, wrought for their own day alone, then power- 
less and lifeless, and preserved to us only in the his- 
torical records of the past. They were the symbol 
and preparation of still greater miracles ; not wrought 
for their own sake, but for what was to follow from 
them ; an introduction to the spiritual miracles of 
the Christian faith ; the commencement of a series 
of spiritual facts more important than themselves, 
but connected with them, as the river that flows 
laden with the wealth of a continent is connected 
with its sources in the distant mountains of the in- 
terior. 

What I mean to urge is this. The original mira- 
cles of Christ were intended to set in motion, and 
did set in motion, a train of causes and effects which 
lasts until this day. The original impulse which 
they gave is still unspent, and the influence they 

24 



278 THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 

now exert is as much connected with the original 
miracles, — constituting a part of one whole, — as 
the striking of the clock in measuring the hour is 
connected with the weight which sets in motion its 
mechanism, — constituting a part of one whole. 
The miracles introduced into the world a supernat- 
ural — not unnatural, but supernatural — order of 
events ; — over the original plane of nature a series 
of events above that nature. The beginning of the 
series was miraculous, just as the original creation 
of man on the earth was miraculous. And it ceases 
to be such only by its continuance. It is scarcely 
possible to separate what is natural from what is 
supernatural. The revelations of Christ were super- 
natural ; but they entered into the common order of 
human thought and human life, and they reach our 
minds through natural means. The original rnira- 
cle was supernatural; but its effects enter into the 
natural order of our lives. Thus the supernatural 
introduces a higher order, which we call natural as 
soon as it becomes customary. 

And yet, strictly speaking, and as viewed in rela- 
tion to what preceded it, it is throughout a super- 
natural order. And the intended spiritual results 
which appear to-day in the world receive character 
from the original miracle. When Christ ascended 
into the heavens, he thus left behind a perennial 
fountain of miracle. Under our own eyes, he works 
miracles, his miracles because wrought by his words, 
in the eye of reason more stupendous than those on 
which the multitude of Judaea gazed, — spiritual mir- 
acles, for which those in matter were only the prepa- 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 



279 



ration. It was a miracle, when with a power from 
God he opened, with a word, the eyes of a single 
blind man. What shall we call it, when with a word 
of divine wisdom, repeated from age to age, — none 
the less his because heard through intervening time, 
than had it come through intervening space,- — and 
because of its first miraculous associations never 
losing its power, he opens the eyes of millions, 
through successive generations, to a new heavens 
and a new earth ? This higher moral light which 
broke forth from miracle, though to us natural in the 
sense of being common, belongs to the supernatural 
order in which it originated. With a divine word 
our Saviour raised men from sickness to health. 
What shall we call it, when with a divine word, re- 
peated from age to age, and never losing its power, 
he gives strength and health and hope, such as the 
world is not able to give, to those sick in spirit, to 
those pining in sorrow, or wasted by despair, or 
crushed down by temptation ? He stopped the bier 
*at the gates of Nain, and restored to his widowed 
mother her only son. Many a mother has mourned 
a son as lost and dead in evil ways, and has not 
despaired, only because despair would have been 
death. Far away that son may have wandered. In 
some more tender moment his attention has been 
caught by some appeal of Jesus. His heart is 
touched ; feelings that have slept for years as in the 
grave are awakened, and the man is rescued, re- 
formed, regenerated. If he returns, when he enters 
his mother's home, a changed man, redeemed from 
moral death, and bows with her to render thanks to 



280 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 



God, not even the widow of Nain had reason for 
more grateful thanks to the Saviour than has this 
Christian mother for her lost son, that he is found, 
for the dead, that he lives again. They were words 
of mighty power, when, as he said, Come forth ! he 
that was in the grave came forth ; but no more in- 
vested with supernatural might than those addressed 
to the human soul, at whose bidding, affections 
palsy-struck, consciences buried in the grave of sin, 
are quickened and come forth. 

Miracles in matter we indeed behold no more; they 
are needed no more. They were not the end of the 
Saviour's ministry, but the means which introduced 
another form of miraculous agency, spiritual and 
perpetual. They struck the rock from which flowed 
out the fountain of life. They broke open the cloud 
to let in a light which should not fade. They were 
but as a bell in the sky, awakening an insensible 
world to words which, because of their supernatural 
authority, have power to redeem and raise it from 
degradation and sin. Were our souls less bowed 
and bound down to the material world, were our 
thoughts as familiar with the laws and processes of 
the spiritual life as with those of nature, we should 
not ask for miracles. We should see those daily, by 
the power and authority of the words of Christ, tak- 
ing place, and none the less his because of the inter- 
val of time between, as wondrous as those which 
they witnessed who beheld in the temple the blind 
restored to sight, or at the tomb of Bethany saw 
Lazarus come forth. 

I have thus dwelt on this event, in order to show 



THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. 



281 



that the miracles of Christ are not simply traditions 
of the past with which we have nothing to do ; but 
that they were the mere beginning of a continual 
series of events, — the first impression on an electric 
chain which reaches down and reveals itself to us in 
letters of light and life ; that they were the intro- 
duction to a supernatural order of truths, convictions, 
and influences, which has become natural only by 
becoming incorporated with all our modes of thought 
and moral judgment and life. Lazarus was raised 
from the grave of earth ; but he was so raised that 
we might be raised from the grave of sin. And 
when our souls yield to the power of Christ's truth, 
the words of Christ shall reveal themselves in us and 
in a higher sense, — their highest and truest sense, — 
" I am the resurrection and the life ; he that believ- 
eth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; 
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall 
never die." 



24* 



SERMON XX. 



ON WHICH SIDE? 

IP ANY MAN WILL DO HIS WILL, HE SHALL KNOW OF THE DOC- 
TRINE WHETHER IT BE OF GOD. — John vii. 17. 

* On which side do you stand ? For on one side 
or the other you must stand. Do you accept Chris- 
tianity as the guide of life, or do you reject it? 
Perhaps you say, I have not made up my mind. I 
answer, that the permanent indecision which makes 
no attempt to come to a conclusion is itself rejec- 
tion. I do not mean to say that one embarrassed 
by doubts should hastily decide ; and whatever the 
conclusion, let no one deal dishonestly with his own 
mind. But somewhere you stand. It becomes you 
to know where you stand. If you stand on the side 
of Christianity, it becomes you to pay the homage 
due to her and her institutions, in heart and life. 
Do you accept Christianity as the guide of life, or 
reject it? or are you endeavoring to come to some 
settled conclusion on one side or the other? The 
worst state is that indifference which takes no inter- 
est in this great question of life, and which sinks to 
a level below even that of doubt and unbelief. 



ON WHICH SIDE? 



283 



On which side do you stand ? You may say, I 
have misgivings and uncertainties, which prevent my 
taking any positive ground ; I find difficulties on all 
sides. This state of mind is so common and so im- 
portant, and arises among honest-minded persons so 
often from a complete misapprehension of the evi- 
dence which belongs to the case, that I shall first ask 
your thoughts to that point. 

What, then, is the question ? Not at all whether 
you can demonstrate, beyond a doubt, the truth of 
everything contained in the Bible, or demonstrate 
even the truth of Christianity. The question for a 
practical man is this : Is there sufficient evidence to 
warrant a reasonable man in adopting heartily Chris- 
tianity as the guide of his life, — sufficient evidence 
to warrant a reasonable man in saying, I am willing 
to trust my destiny to her guidance, to take my 
stand on her side, and to identify my hopes with her 
promises ? There is one element in this discussion, 
'the most essential of all, which is almost invariably 
omitted ; the fact that we live, and must live, and 
must reap the legitimate fruits of the way in which 
we live. If we could escape living, it would be of 
no consequence whether we came to a conclusion or 
not. But we must live, and we must live by some 
general plan or theory of life. The man who has 
turned himself into an animal, and never thinks ex- 
cept of what he eats and drinks, though he is heed- 
less of it, has as decided a way of living as the phi- 
losopher or the saint. If you consider this, you will 
see at once that the question of accepting or reject- 
ing Christianity takes a different form from that 



284 



ON WHICH SIDE? 



commonly given to it. We discuss it as though we 
stood in the position of a spectator .or judge, to 
whom Christianity offers itself for trial ; and as 
though, if she does not furnish conclusive evidence 
of trustworthiness, she is to be at once rejected, 
while we fall back on certain reserved and settled 
truths behind. But this is to invert the whole con- 
dition of things. Here I am on the earth, a respon- 
sible creature, with a life to live, with mysteries all 
around me, and the unknown before me. In some 
way I must live. We cannot furl the sails and cast 
anchor in the harbor, but we must put forth and 
cross the cloudy sea of life. What is the wise, judi- 
cious, true course for me to take ? That and that 
alone is the question. Have I the ability to con- 
struct a satisfactory theory of life ? It is certain 
that I have not. I must look beyond myself. And 
around me start up those who claim to be guides. 
Twenty different systems of philosophy offer them- 
selves ; a hundred different religions. Atheism un-* 
dertakes to guide me. Mohammedanism undertakes 
to guide me. Rationalism undertakes to guide me. 
But am I satisfied with their authority ? Am I sat- 
isfied with Atheism ? Is Atheism free from difficul- 
ties ? Does Atheism prove that there is no God ? 
And if no God, has it demonstrated that there is no 
future life ? Has nationalism, when it undertakes 
to be anything but mere scepticism, no difficulties ? 
On what authority does it speak ? Where are its 
credentials ? How does it account for the moral 
phenomena of the world, and man, and Christianity? 
When it assumes the position of a positive system, 



ON WHICH SIDE? 



285 



it is embarrassed by difficulties scarcely less than 
those of Atheism. Has universal Scepticism no 
difficulties ? It is the most untenable ground of all ; 
for we know that there is something true, something 
to be affirmed or denied. And the scepticism which 
neither affirms nor denies is false to the w hole nature 
of things. Embarrassed, oppressed with these un- 
certainties, Christianity offers to guide me. She 
does not come, a dependent suppliant, to my feet. 
She seems to come from heaven, and she offers to 
guide me. I pause.; for though she be clad in gar- 
ments of light, I may be mistaken. But whether I 
will or no, among these various plans of life I must 
choose, from the very fact that I live. The only 
question is, whether Christianity is the safest and 
best of these guides. If I am simply satisfied that 
the best and wisest plan of life offered to us is the 
Christian plan, as a reasonable person I must adopt 
it. I believe that the evidence goes infinitely be- 
yond this ; but all that we absolutely need is enough 
to warrant our choosing the Christian plan of life as, 
on the whole, the most wise and reasonable one. Is 
there any better plan ? Can you suggest a better ? 
I see that those who live by it advance and improve 
in character. I see that it enlightens and strength- 
ens conscience, softens the affections, and is the rec- 
onciling, harmonizing, regenerating power of the 
world. Is there any better system to live by ? If 
not, and until you can propose a better, because you 
must live somehow, it is the one to be adopted ; 
and it is to be adopted on the principle of the text. 
In every undertaking we assume the truth of many 



286 



ON WHICH SIDE? 



things of whose truth we have no personal experi- 
ence. We assume it, and then try the experiment. 
So we assume the truth of Christianity ; and they 
who try it rarely doubt of its doctrines that they 
come from God. In determining what side we 
stand upon, we are governed by the same kind of 
evidence by which all the important concerns of life 
are determined. The man must come to some de- 
cision ; and in all important matters he takes that 
side which is most reasonable, where the danger is 
least if he be mistaken, and the good results the 
greatest if he decide correctly. The question, then, 
is not whether the Christian evidences are demon- 
strative, but the question for you is this : Inasmuch 
as I must live in some way, what plan of life on the 
whole commends itself as being the wisest, safest, 
and most reasonable one ? Who is there that doubts 
it is the Christian plan of living ? And if you are 
satisfied on that point, all the sceptical difficulties 
beyond are the mere triflings of an after-dinner dis- 
pute. I urge this point because I think that nearly 
all the scepticism which embarrasses practical per- 
sons results from a misconception of the true ques- 
tion. 

I come back now to the question with which I 
started. On which side do you stand ? Do you 
accept Christianity as the authoritative guide of life, 
or do you reject it? This is the great religious 
question of our day. The differences of Christian 
sects with one another are in the comparison trifling. 
The great dividing line — for who that chooses to 
look at things as they are can doubt it ? — is between 



ON WHICH SIDE? 



287 



those who reject and those who admit the Divine 
authority of the Christian religion. We may con- 
fuse ourselves by words used in a double sense ; we 
may refuse to look distinctly at the alternatives pre- 
sented. But if Christianity be not what it claims 
to be, then there is no such thing as an authoritative 
religion. There is no other religion to take its place; 
and the only substitutes are the fancies of individual 
minds. If the Gospels are not to be relied upon, 
then Christianity is to find its place among the other 
products of the human mind, — a mixture of wise 
teachings, of myth and fable, of honest purpose, 
credulity, cunning, and fraud, but with no more au- 
thority than Seneca or Socrates, or any man who 
pretends to say what man is and is to be. The 
question of the time is, whether we have or have 
not a religion. To my mind this is a very serious 
question. I hope that I am enough in the habit of 
avoiding exaggeration, and of trying to make honest 
discriminations, to save me from the suspicion of 
cant, or of any undue professional biases, in saying 
that I believe it to be a question of infinite moment 
to us. I believe it to be the fundamental social as 
well as religious question. Certainly, in rejecting 
Christianity, the world must practically, to a great 
extent, surrender all assured religious faith ; for apart 
from Christianity what sufficient evidence have you 
for the fundamental truths of religion relating even 
to the character of God, and the immortal life ? 
You say that this man and that, who reject Chris- 
tianity, believe as much as the Christian. Very pos- 
sibly ; but whence did they derive their faith ? The 



288 



ON WHICH SIDE? 



world never had it before Christianity. It has it in 
no land to which Christianity has not carried it. 
These great doctrines have come from Christianity, 
and from no other source. And these very men owe 
the faiths of which they vaunt themselves to the 
religion at which they scoff. I think the whole ex- 
perience of the world shows that faith in a Paternal 
Providence, faith in a Moral Ruler of the world, faith 
that God desires only the moral goodness of his 
creatures, faith that he forgives the penitent, and 
faith in the moral doctrine of immortality as some- 
thing different from a mere future existence, are de- 
pendent on faith in the Divine authority of Chris- 
tianity. There may be individual exceptions ; but 
let the great mass of men come to the conviction 
that Christianity is a fable, and how much religious 
faith of any kind do you think will remain in the 
world ? And what are to be the moral and social 
results of this loosening of religious faith ? The 
world has seen its results in large communities. 
But there are other cases which furnish still better 
tests. Take the multitudes of young men poured 
from the country into our cities, into the myriad 
temptations of city life. Take those of their num- 
ber who have been brought up in Christian homes 
to believe in the Bible, to read Christ's teachings as 
having authority, when under the penalties of God's 
judgments he requires them to be just, honest, true, 
to keep their thoughts pure, to restrain their malig- 
nant passions, and to live righteously and usefully. 
Suppose you could suddenly root out this faith ; that 
they should fancy themselves to have been cheated 



ON WHICH SIDE? 



289 



by these ancient legends ; that the teachings of their 
parents were the result of a sad credulity and want 
of light ; • that every man after all must be his own 
religion ; that the only revelation is that which is in 
a man's own heart ; that the only thing is for a man 
to follow his instincts ; — - what influence do you 
think this would have on the virtues of society? Or 
take another case. Were you sending your child 
away to school, would you desire your son or your 
daughter to be taught these principles of unbelief? 
If you found a teacher were inculcating the notion 
that every one must make his own religion, that the 
Christian story was the mere product of cunning 
and credulity, and that even its moral truths were 
but just up to the level of our enlightened age, 
how long would you let your child remain under 
that influence ? Why would you be made miser- 
able by finding that the believing heart of your child 
had been robbed of the inspiration of faith? Be- 
cause you know that the results can be only mis- 
chievous ; and though you may care little about the 
welfare of mankind, you have no desire to see your 
child put in jeopardy. But you reply, You are mak- 
ing too much of belief; it is of no consequence 
what a man believes, provided he is honest. Of all 
wretched sophisms with which the mind of the world 
has been juggled and cheated, this seems to me the 
most shallow. Doubtless a man will have the ad- 
vantage of the honesty which he possesses, whether he 
believes truth or not ; but he cannot have the advan- 
tage of the truth which he does not possess. Who 
does not know that every man's course is greatly 

25 



290 



ON WHICH SIDE? 



influenced by what he believes ? His belief does not 
turn error into truth. Belief will not make an in- 
correct chart a correct one. If one steps over a pre- 
cipice in the night, it will not alter the result that he 
believed that he was walking on level ground. Our 
religious belief relates to what are and what are not 
the laws of God's providence. The fact that I am 
honest in my error will not change a wrong belief 
into a right one, nor alter the results of pursuing a 
wrong course. 

Instead of belief being unimportant, it is belief, 
more than anything else, which determines the con- 
dition of man. To improve the condition of a peo- 
ple, the first step is to bring its beliefs, its beliefs 
about God and man and the interests of society, 
into accordance with the truth. What makes the 
people of Spain, or Turkey, or Hindostan, what they 
are, but 'the prevailing ways of thinking, and the cus- 
toms and laws that grow out of them ? The changes 
wrought by the Reformation originated in the change 
of a few religious opinions. In undertaking a new 
enterprise the first step is to convince men that it is 
wise and right. If I believe revenge to be a virtue, I 
should indulge the passion. If a man believes that 
there is no God, and no future state, and that there 
is no greater happiness than the indulgence of the 
appetites, he will probably be a different man from 
what he would have been, had he believed that the 
true welfare of man depended on the right culture of 
moral principles and spiritual affections. A young 
man who believes that nothing is so bad and base 
as dishonesty, will be different from what he would 



ON WHICH SIDE ? 



291 



have been had he believed that the only guilt in dis- 
honesty consists in being detected. To say that it 
is of no consequence what one's religious belief is, 
provided he is honest, — that in regard to that which 
treats of the most important human relations, of 
God, of man, of futurity, and whose special office is 
to teach man how to live, it is of no consequence 
what one believes, — is an absurdity almost beyond 
conception. 

But you say, there are good men who reject Chris- 
tianity. Doubtless there are. I do not say that be- 
lief is the sole thing that determines character. I 
only say that, as a rule, it must have a most power- 
ful effect upon it, — and that the moral state of any 
people will depend very much on its moral beliefs. 
And this we at once acknowledge, when we say that 
a man's moral notions will differ essentially as he is 
educated into the beliefs of Christendom, or of China, 
or of Central Africa. But there are good men who 
reject Christianity ? Doubtless there are. But prob- 
ably they owe the best parts of their character to the 
very religion which they abjure. They have breathed 
in the higher moral sentiment which Christianity 
produces in the community. They have been in- 
directly benefited by her institutions, by her helps 
and her restraints. Nay, more, you are very likely to 
find, that, during childhood and youth, when habits 
are formed, they grew up as believers under the train- 
ing of Christian parents. Their characters were 
formed by Christian influences, and their habits re- 
main after their religious faith is lost, as light re- 
mains in the sky after the sun has sunk below the 



292 



ON WHICH SIDE? 



horizon. They are no specimens of the result of un- 
belief, but rather of the power of belief to benefit one 
after the faith itself is gone. The true question is, 
What will be the character of their children, if they 
are brought up on unbelief, — brought up to re- 
gard Christianity as a fable, and to look no higher 
than themselves for rules of living ? It is not till we 
have a generation whose childhood is nurtured in 
unbelief, — and may God avert that day of disaster 
and eclipse ! — that we are to see the true fruits of 
scepticism. To say that the rejection of Christianity, 
treating as it does of the greatest subjects and inter- 
ests, will have no results, is to speak childishly. For 
good or evil, the spread of Christianity altered the 
whole moral beliefs of the countries where it spread. 
Christianity made the moral beliefs of Christendom 
different from what they would have been had they 
remained heathen. And to reject Christianity, to 
blot out faith in it, is to return to the state of natu- 
ral light in which the world was before Christianity. 
It is to return to some form of heathen scepticism or 
superstition. 

In an age when so many minds are seriously la- 
boring to bring about this change, — laboring to de- 
stroy confidence in the authority of Christianity, and 
to substitute in its place, as if it were something 
novel, precisely that moral light which the heathen 
world had before Christ's coming — neither more nor 
less — an d which the whole heathen world has now, — 
in such an age, if one believes that we owe anything 
to Christ's revelations, it becomes him to say so. If 
one believes that the world at large owes its best 



OX WHICH SIDE? 



293 



ideas of God and man, and human duty and destiny, 
and all that is most exalting in faith, to Christianity, 
and that to blot out this great light would be like 
extinguishing the sun, it becomes him heartily to 
acknowledge it. I do not ask one to be untrue to 
himself, — never ! — nor to pretend to believe when 
he does not believe, — never ! But this much is in- 
cumbent on every one, that, when a matter of such 
vital interest is in debate, a man should know where 
he stands. On which side do you wish your children 
to stand ? And • if you believe that one side is false 
and fraught with immeasurable mischiefs, and that 
another side is true and identified with the best in- 
terests of mankind, it becomes you, when your mind 
is settled on this point, to stand there, — with all re- 
spect for the free judgment of those who differ from 
you, with all modesty in regard to your own convic- 
tions, — but to take that side which you believe is 
for the moral welfare of man. 

If you have faith in Christianity, pay to the Relig- 
ion which has blessed the world that homage which 
consists in ranging yourself under her banner, openly 
and steadily, even though she condemn your own 
guilty lives. Let there be no mistake about the fact 
that you are on that side. She may rebuke and con- 
demn you, and you may deserve it all ; but honor 
her in her rebukes, and let it be seen that you will 
sooner follow her who condemns your vices, than 
follow the unbelief which gives swing and license to 
your passions. On a subject of this great moment, 
it becomes men to know on what side they stand, 



294 



ON WHICH SIDE? 



and what guide they propose to take through the 
mysteries of this mortal life. 

Thus far I have spoken of some decisive posi- 
tion in regard to faith. But that is important only 
as a preparation for another step ; and that is the 
adoption of Christianity as the practical guide of life. 
In some way you are living. The Christian law is 
something that you neglect or that you observe. It 
is, or is not, of practical authority with you. The 
whole worth of Christianity depends on its practical 
application to life. If you believe that it is the re- 
ligion to live by, it becomes you to consider whether 
you are obeying its requirements. In any moral un- 
certainty, do you in the last resort appeal to the 
Christian law ? Is it your intention — for the moral 
intention determines the character — to follow the 
guidance of Christ ? 

If there be any truth in Christianity, then the great 
thing we are called upon to do is to come to some 
moral decision on this subject. Let it be your de- 
liberate purpose to live by the Christian law. If 
you fail in your purpose to-day, let it be renewed to- 
morrow. Let there be no doubt on what side you 
stand. Do not try to cover and excuse your sins, 
by half pretending that you abjure the law which 
condemns you. It is not merely a duty to come to 
this decision ; the mere making the decision invigo- 
rates the whole moral nature. It clears up your 
mind ; you are no longer the slave of petty, enfee- 
bling indecisions ; you stand right before the world ; 
■ — and it is for your good and for the good of others 
that there should be no doubt on what side you 



ON WHICH SIDE ? 



295 



stand. Come to this decision, and you judge your- 
self by the Christian law. Every one knows that 
you expect to be judged by it, and it is for your good 
to have it understood that you expect so to be judged. 
If you violate it, you acknowledge that you are prop- 
erly condemned by it, and it is for your good that 
you should be held to a law so high and pure ; and if 
you obey it, your character has all the good influ- 
ence which comes from an intended and purposed 
obedience. There can be nothing in our lives of so 
much moment as the coming to the deliberate and 
permanent purpose of living under the authority of 
the Christian law. May our hearts prompt us to 
make this decision! May God grant us power to 
say, in earnest sincerity, We take our stand on the 
side of Christianity, to follow her guidance and to 
obey her laws. And may He of his mercy help us 
to live by this decision ! 



SERMON XXI. 



CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY. 

THEN SAID HE UNTO ME, SON OF MAN, HAST THOU SEEN WHAT THE 
ANCIENTS OP THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL DO IN THE DARK, EVERT 
MAN IN THE CHAMBERS OF HIS IMAGERY 1 — Ezekiel viH. 12. 

In this passage the Prophet describes himself as 
caught up and carried to Jerusalem, and set down 
near the temple. And then in vision he beholds 
" the idolatries of Judah." Under a series of em- 
blems he describes the corruption, the degradation, 
the idolatrous rites, into which the children of Israel 
had fallen. Before the temple even was the statue 
of a heathen god. He is commanded to dig into 
the wall, where was a secret door, by means of 
which he should gain access to the unholy rites 
which they celebrate in secret. He entered, and 
found every shape of creeping things and abomina- 
ble beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, 
portrayed on the walls round about. And there, as- 
sembled for unhallowed worship, were the ancients 
of the house of Israel, with censers swinging in their 
hands, and offering this midnight homage to the gods 
of the heathen. I quote the whole passage. " He 



CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY. 



297 



said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou 
what they do ? even the great abominations that the 
house of Israel committeth here, that I should go 
far off from my sanctuary? but turn thou yet again, 
and thou shalt see greater abominations. And he 
brought -me to the door of the court ; and when I 
looked, behold a hole in the wall. Then said he 
unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall ; and 
when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. And 
he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abomi- 
nations that they do here. So I went in and saw : 
and, behold, every form of creeping things and abom- 
inable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, 
portrayed on the wall round about. And there 
stood before them seventy men of the ancients of 
the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood 
Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his 
censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense 
went up. Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast 
thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel 
do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his 
imagery ? for they say, The Lord seeth us not ; the 
Lord hath forsaken the earth." 

Though this was merely a vision, through which 
it was intended to present the corrupted state of 
Judah in the most impressive form, we may suppose 
that the imagery of the vision was drawn from cus- 
toms that then prevailed. These secret midnight 
incantations were not unusual in heathen worship. 
An ancient historian relates, that round the room in 
African Thebes where the body of one of their 
kings was supposed to be buried, a multitude of 



298 



CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY. 



chambers were built, which had beautiful paintings 
of all the beasts held sacred in Egypt. 

But we need not regard this as merely a vision- 
ary representation of the state of Judah. The mind 
of man is a chamber of imagery in whose darkness 
go on works hidden from the world, and sometimes, 
we may fancy, hidden even from the eye of God. 

A hall of imagery ! No phrase could better de- 
scribe the mind of man, — and Memory the painter. 
In colors bright or dark, in the very lineaments of 
joy or shame or grief, she paints every deed, every 
struggle of the soul ; — our very wishes and purposes, 
though unacted, all are there. The world may be 
ignorant of what is there, but we cannot forget. 
The world may give mistaken praise or censure, but 
in this place its mistakes are corrected. As we go 
back through the solemn halls of life, and light up 
the chambers of imagery, there we behold them all. 
— all the scenes of the past, fixed immovably on the 
walls, and silently smiling or frowning upon us. 
And there, it may be, are darker deeds, sculptured 
in stone, standing aloft in their niches, from which 
no strength of ours can pull them, — dread remind- 
ers of the past, looking down with frozen, unmoving 
eye upon the despair of the soul. Chambers they 
are, to multitudes, of shuddering and hopelessness, 
and into which the best cannot enter and meditate 
without deepest humility and sorrow because of the 
scenes on which the eye must there rest. 

Come, then, and by that door to which all have 
the key let us "enter these halls of imagery within 
the human soul. Light up the torches and raise 



CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY. 



299 



them aloft, that we may see what is upon the wall. 
These halls are as various as are the lives of men. 
You have entered some great building prepared for 
an assembly to which none have come. A few 
lamps hung up showed only a dreary, naked breadth 
of walls, with nothing on them to relieve the forlorn 
air of destitution and desolation. Such sometimes 
is the human mind. An idle and unprofitable life 
has left only blank spaces where might have been 
pictures of light, — blank and empty spaces to con- 
demn our profitless days. There are more fearful 
galleries than these. We have all read of the Cata- 
combs that lie under one of the great European cap- 
itals. They stretch under whole quarters of the city. 
In terrible order, arranged in innumerable galleries, 
are deposited the remains of more than ten genera- 
tions, — a world of silence below, while heave and 
swell in endless confusion the surges of life above. 
You enter these gloomy abodes with torches, and on 
every side are seen the mementos of death and de- 
cay. More gloomy than this, sometimes, is the hu- 
man mind. Portrayed on its walls are scenes- of 
decay and death. Here the innocence of childhood 
— a fair, frail creature of the light — is slowly dy- 
ing. There, on an altar whence once arose holy 
aspirations to heaven, the fire is gone out. Vir- 
tues once fresh and blooming sink and expire un- 
der the assaults of the world. Here is seen one, 
trembling and yet resolved, bartering away to the 
Evil One his honesty for gain ; and there another 
surrendering his conscience for pleasure. In another 
space, the demolished temple, the trampled cross, 



300 



CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY. 



are but symbols of a dead faith. And the angels 
weep over another scene, not because sickness and 
death of the body are there, but because in the soul 
the affections have withered into selfishness and 
died. And the man, as he passes through this aw- 
ful gallery, recognizes his own life. There is the 
very place and scene where he sacrificed his integ- 
rity, and ever since he has walked among men full 
of guilty fears. There he sees revived before him 
the slow decay of youthful virtue and aspiration. 
The scenes enacted in his own heart, the decay and 
death there, are pictured and sculptured on these 
walls. 

There are chambers of imagery in which we 
might gladly linger. It is said that in the Old 
World is a gallery of paintings in which are col- 
lected none but pictures of the Holy Family. The 
Virgin Mother and the infant Jesus, images of in- 
nocence and faith and heaven, smile on every side 
from the canvas. Some pure souls there may be 
who when they enter their chambers of imagery 
may behold such scenes alone as these ; — a virtu- 
ous youth, a devout age, a divine faith triumphing 
over the powers of the world. 

But at the best, the gallery of the mind can often 
present only a mingled series of pictures. From the 
earliest years man traces up his life. The soul en- 
counters every form of evil. A thousand times it is 
overborne, and rises with feeble steps, and in its 
hard struggles learns at length that, if it would stand 
erect, it must lean on God. There are the scenes of 
bereavement, and the features of those hid in the 



CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY. 



301 



grave reappear on these shadowy walls. There re- 
morse has taken a form, and penitence too, and all 
the struggles of the soul. The pilgrim travels on 
through an ever-varying discipline, and at length, 
only through much tribulation, enters the kingdom 
of heaven. 

The chambers of imagery which the Prophet saw 
were devoted to the dark rites of an idolatrous wor- 
ship. Even in this we might follow out the same 
analogy. Temples of wood and stone, and all our 
rites of worship, are but outward forms, — symbols 
and shadows of spiritual things, — of no value ex- 
cept as they give expression to a worship of the 
soul. The soul is the real temple in which alone 
God is served ; the heart, the only altar from which 
can ascend an acceptable sacrifice. 

We call ourselves Christians, and all unite in one 
form of outward homage to the same Almighty Pow- 
er, the Lord of heaven and earth. But each man has 
his chamber of imagery, and, could we enter in, how 
often should we find there the unhallowed rites of 
another worship. Enter silently this dark and con- 
cealed chamber. These are not the symbols of Je- 
hovarrs presence that we see. Here is an altar, and 
the god that is reared over it is Mammon. And 
here Power looks down from his throne ; and there 
Pleasure stretches out her arms. The walls are 
covered with emblems of the world and the pas- 
sions. And the man in the secret chamber of his 
imagery swings his censer, and bows down in adora- 
tion before the gods of his idolatry. Here, in this 
secret chamber, are those wishes uttered which are 

26 



302 



CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY. 



his real prayers, and here that bowing down of the 
soul which is the only true worship. 

We are apt to feel as if what was done in these 
halls of imagery was unmarked. So thought the 
faithless ancients of the house of Judah. Darkness 
and thick walls gave concealment to their midnight 
conclave. Yet even there the angels, to whose spir- 
itual vision these walls were transparent, were look- 
ing in ; and to the Prophet, his eyes touched with 
spiritual light, all became visible. Silent, unseen, 
and mourning spectators they stood of these rites of 
sin and darkness. 

And when we enter our chambers of imagery, 
may there not be other witnesses than we think ? 
Surely it is not a vain nor unreasonable thought, 
that around us are spiritual beings, to whose spirit- 
ual eyes the mind lies open, even as the scenes of 
the visible world lie open to the bodily eye. Where 
are the departed ones whom we have loved and who 
have loved us ? Who shall deem it an unreasonable 
faith, that the mother looks down on the child and 
watches his course? And if so, it is not merely 
what he does that makes her follow him with all the 
anxiety of affection, but the thoughts and purposes 
of the mind, the growing tastes, the struggles there 
with temptation, the faithful endeavors to abide by 
the right ; not the prayers alone that he utters in 
the church, but the gratitude and devotion of the 
heart. In our career of worldliness, the thought 
shall not harm us that unseen beings are witnesses 
of our course, and that loved ones whom we do not 
behold are near us. Happy is he who suffers to 



CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY. 



303 



abide in his mind only those thoughts and purposes 
which these spiritual beings may gladly look upon. 

But if there be no other, there is one eye that 
looks through all the veils of time and sense, — from 
whom nothing is hid while doing, and by whom 
nothing is forgotten when done, — before whom all 
things lie open. 

"We are apt to regard as of no importance what 
merely transpires in the mind. Yet, in the sight of 
God, in the mind is the seat and source of all good 
and ill. It is the purpose that clothes an act with 
goodness or guilt. It is the purpose that gives its 
criminality to the blow of the assassin, and its dig- 
nity to the sufferings of the martyr. The act may 
be the same, but the different purpose makes one 
disinterested and another selfish. The forms of 
worship may be the same ; but to one mind they 
are a mockery, and to another full of devotion. 
Nay, the purpose which we attempt is in the sight 
of God the same as if it were accomplished. It is 
not an unimportant thing what occupies our minds, 
and which way we suffer our wishes and inclinations 
to tend. In these chambers of imagery is the real 
life of man. Here, where are the secret counsels 
and plans and resolves, where the passions conquer 
or are subdued, where are the principles that we 
obey and the will that resolves, — here is the life of 
the man. All else is but outward show and mani- 
festation. It is here that He looks who requires that 
all true worshippers shall worship him in spirit and 
in truth. 

It is described as one of the marks of the folly and 



304 



CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY. 



impiety of the ancients of Judah, that, when met in 
their chambers of imagery for their unhallowed rites, 
they said, " The Lord seeth us not ; the Lord hath 
forsaken the earth." Ah no! Shut ourselves up in 
the chambers of the soul, and all lies exposed to him. 
The imaginations that we indulge take form and 
shape before him ; and the hopes that we cherish 
are audible prayers to the object of our worship ; 
and the thought is as the word, and the purpose as 
the deed. 

"We enter now these halls of imagery at our 
choice, to review the past for correction and im- 
provement. The time comes when we must enter 
them for judgment. In all that we are taught of a 
retribution, we are taught not only that it is a right- 
eous one, but that we shall be aware of its righteous- 
ness. In that dread hour the memory must take a 
conspicuous part. It is memory and conscience that 
shall affirm the righteous judgments of God. Again 
must we stand within our chambers of imagery, — 
not, as now, dark and closed against the world, but 
thrown broadly open, — the light from heaven's 
throne streaming through, and divine spectators 
looking on. In the midst of the awful congrega- 
tion of the risen dead, again must we pass through 
the halls of life ; and there upon the walls shall live 
again the hours that are past, the faded colors re- 
viving under the supernatural light. There are the 
very deeds of the hand and the purposes of the 
heart; they shall need no voice, — the silent walls, 
— and memory and conscience, giving meaning to 
all we behold upon them, shall approve or condemn. 



CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY. 



305 



If it be so melancholy to traverse the halls of the 
past, because on every side are so many sad memen- 
tos, because the music is silent and the garlands 
faded and the hours are gone that shall never return, 
how fearful shall that day be when all is reviewed 
for judgment, — that day of revelation when all 
shall be made known, when the heart shall give up 
its secrets, when the graves shall give up their dead, 
and all stand before God ! For that day, in which 
the strong shall bow and the most devout tremble, 
may God in his mercy aid us to be prepared ! 

There is yet one other view of the subject. Our 
life must be very much in the present and the past. 
We have hopes, plans, speculations for the future ; 
yet even these, so far as they are reasonable, depend 
on foundations laid in the past. The future is un- 
certain, but the past is fixed. It exerts a steady in- 
fluence. Leaving out of view the effects of its dis- 
cipline on the character, who can tell its power over 
our present happiness ? By ten thousand links it 
takes hold of all the springs of joy cr pain in the 
soul. No one can make light of the past. There is 
his childhood. There the friends to whom he has 
been a burden or a blessing. There are days and 
deeds which can never be recalled. There are the 
struggles of the conscience ; there failures and falls 
that must always be mourned ; there the affections 
of the living and the tombs of the dead. Behold an 
aged man. By what myriad threads of associa- 
tion which he cannot control is his mind carried 
back ! He takes up a letter ; it was written years 
ago by a friend of youth long gone. He takes up 

26 * 



306 



CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY. 



another ; it was from one whose friendship was suc- 
ceeded by alienation, and it tells of broken trust and 
severed affections. He passes down the street ; the 
signs of business recall those whose prosperity his 
kindness has helped or his selfishness marred. He 
opens a book ; it belonged to a child, to a brother, 
a sister, whom he followed to an early grave. He 
cannot escape the spell. It is in vain to say he will 
not look back. A word, a mere cadence of the voice, 
the most familiar sight or sound, and in a moment 
the panorama of years passes before his eyes, and at 
once, and without warning, scenes flash upon him 
that light up the features with smiles, or strike with 
a sting to the heart. And every year we live, the 
past becomes more important to us. The cloud en- 
larges, which is full of the morning's light, and in 
whose folds so often sleep the thunder and the 
threatening storm. And the past, what is it? It 
is what memory makes it. "We live in the midst of 
the memories of the past. It is our very dwelling 
and home which we build up around us day by day. 
We may leave our dwellings of wood and stone ; 
may pull them down, repair them, remove from 
them ; but not so this spiritual dwelling, this pres- 
ence and audience chamber of the memory. We 
build it once for all ; it stands for ever, and is, ac- 
cording to what we have made it, our home or our 
prison. 

This is the soul's hall of imagery. Let us give 
heed to the significance of the words. We think it 
desirable that the apartments in which we dwell 
should not be deformed or unsightly ; if in our 



CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY. 



307 



power, we would have them ornamented with pic- 
tures and works of art and taste. What then to 
us is the soul's chamber of imagery ! It is crowded 
with pictures ; each deed and thought, by a daguerre- 
otype that asks no light of the sun or chemist's 
skill, is at once and silently transferred, and takes 
its place immovably on the wall. Like the chamber 
of the ancients of Judah, it may be covered with 
every form of creeping things and beasts worshipped 
as idols, which are but the symbols of our earthly 
passions and appetites ; or on it may be portrayed 
divine pictures of hope and faith. But once there, 
there they remain, a perpetual presence before the 
memory and conscience. Each new scene we pic- 
ture on the walls must remain there for ever, to frown 
or smile upon us. 

Hang up in your halls of imagery what you will here- 
after rejoice to see there. Suffer not to be there scenes 
which shall affright and sting the soul. Each day, 
let your deeds and your purposes be such that there 
may take its place on the wall a new picture which 
you shall be glad to look back upon. Happy is that 
man who has so lived that he can go back and forth, 
as he daily must, through the chambers of imagery, 
with an untrembling soul, — who shall see on every 
side pictures that shall awaken in his heart emotions 
of peace, of pleasure, and hope. 

I have said that the past is fixed. It is so. But 
in the mercy of God there is one qualification, with- 
out which, such is our unworthiness and guilt, the 
only thing left us would be despair. We cannot 
take down the pictures from the wall. But we may 



308 



CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY. 



add to them ; we may sometimes correct and alter. 
God has granted to man the boon and the oppor- 
tunity of repentance, and in his mercy granted to 
repentance the promise of forgiveness. If the pic- 
ture of the prodigal's departure is painted, there may 
be added the prodigal's return and the father's en- 
during love. If there be the picture of one forgiven 
much, let there be added to it that of one who loves 
much. By the side of the wrong we have done, may 
be set our efforts to repair the wrong. Over the 
scenes of guilt and repentance, as over the retreating 
waves of the deluge, there may be arched the rain- 
bow of the Divine mercy. Repentance may not 
efface the past. The rays of the setting sun do not 
disperse the clouds that gather along the western 
horizon, but they fill the clouds with light, and make 
them luminous with hues of beauty. So repentance, 
though it cannot efface the past, transfigures it ; and 
while it leaves enough of the dark cloud to make us 
humble, it pours over it and around it a light from 
heaven that fills the soul with serene hope. The 
repented and forsaken sins, while they shall ever 
remind us of our weakness, bring us nearer to 
Him whose strength saves and whose mercy for- 
gives. 

Let each one enter the chambers of his imagery. 
Let the transforming power of repentance alter and 
correct, as far as may be, the dark and guilty scenes 
of the past. And as, day by day and year by year, 
new chambers are added, — the record of the soul's 
life and experience, — let the walls grow ever bright- 
er with scenes which shall be the emblems of a 



CHAMBERS OF IMAGERY. 



309 



growing Christian life, on which a virtuous and 
pious soul may gladly look, and which your dying 
eyes may survey with peaceful memories and hum- 
ble but happy expectation. 



SERMON XXII. 



THE MEMORIAL OF VIRTUE. 

THE MEMORIAL OP VIRTUE IS IMMORTAL ; BECAUSE IT IS KNOWN 
WITH GOD AND WITH MEN. WHEN IT IS PRESENT, MEN TAKE 
EXAMPLE OP IT; AND WHEN IT IS GONE, THEY DESIRE IT ', IT 
WEARETH A CROWN AND TRIUMPHETH FOR EVER, HAVING GOTTEN 
THE VICTORY, STRIVING FOR UNDEFILED REWARDS. — Wisdom of 

Solomon iv. 2. 

We are so made as to be deeply impressed by 
external scenes and events. These outward influ- 
ences, prearranged to stimulate thought, to kindle 
hope, to alarm the fears, to stir the fountains of 
joy and grief, constitute, in large part, the school of 
life. What we are, or are to be, depends on our 
fidelity in this school. It is therefore no superstition 
which makes the closing year a period of religious 
and serious thought. To arrive at another of those 
milestones which mark the years between the cra- 
dle and the grave ; to be made aware how swiftly 
life flits by ; to be conscious that we are growing 
older, and perhaps not better ; to remember dear 
friends who were with us, but are not now ; to hear 
from bereaved homes and opened graves the warn- 



THE MEMORIAL OF VIRTUE. 



311 



ing that life is as uncertain as it is brief ; — all this 
is surely enough to sober the most frivolous mind. 
We are brought, as it were, into the very presence of 
the sublimest realities ; — life, so brief; death, so cer- 
tain ; judgment not to be evaded ; and God, the 
sovereign of the living and the dead. 

The last Sunday of the year seems set apart from 
all other days of the year for memories and offices of 
its own. On this day, as we meet here, besides the 
living, there is a silent congregation present to the 
memory which is not visible to the eye. There 
are those who miss the children on whom they had 
hoped in age to lean ; and others, the sister or 
brother or husband or parent or friend ; and all 
miss the venerable forms of those who constituted, 
as it were, a part of the church itself, by their rev- 
erence making us all revere more its offices. A 
year since they were with us, they sat by your 
side, they read from the same book, they uttered 
the same prayers ; but their voices no longer join 
with ours. It is the solemn funeral service of the 
year. 

The present Sunday has to me an additional in- 
terest. It completes ten years since I first had the 
privilege of occupying this place. For evil or good, 
ten years of life have gone by. And how great the 
changes ! In a congregation less subject to change 
than almost any other, a silent, gradual revolution 
has been going on, until, in no inconsiderable part, 
it is not the same that I first met. Children have 
reached youth, those entering youth are now men 
and women, husbands, wives, parents, presenting 



312 



THE MEMORIAL OF VIRTUE. 



their children from day to day at the altar for Chris- 
tian baptism. And from the ranks of the young 
and the old alike, many have disappeared. As I 
look around, I am made conscious that there is 
scarce a family which has not known the saddest, as 
well as the joyful, experiences of life. In your homes 
marriage lamps have, been lit; out of your doors 
funeral trains have passed ; and in all hearts, what- 
ever the outward fortune, have been going on the 
moral conflicts from which no one is exempt. And 
beside all these memories, when one who hoped to 
be a Christian minister is compelled to think how 
much he has fallen short of that high idea, who 
sees how much ought to have been, and how little 
has been, accomplished, and remembers that all the 
harm done and the good not done must remain, that 
opportunities are gone and years gone not to return, 
it cannot be otherwise than a day of many sad and 
many serious thoughts to him. Nor would I have 
it otherwise to any of us. In this busy and seduc- 
tive whirl of life, let us not lose these natural occa- 
sions on which to pause and meditate. We will, 
at least, give this day to the supreme interests of the 
soul. 

During the past year the number of the departed 
has not been large, but they have been so prominent 
among us for position, or usefulness, or age, or the 
close dependences of affection," or the peculiar and 
touching circumstances of their loss, that a length- 
ening shadow hangs on the parting year. 

Within a few days, since the last time I addressed 
you, this church, and society at large, have been be- 



THE MEMORIAL OF VIRTUE. 



313 



reaved of one whom all loved to honor, — one vener- 
able for his years, and more venerable for his wis- 
dom and his virtues.* It seems natural to speak of 
him here ; for his stable character, his profound re- 
spect for religion and her offices, his habitual pres- 
ence here, entered into all our associations with the 
church. Scarce a month has passed since he sat, a 
childlike and devout worshipper, in his accustomed 
seat. 

It is not for me to attempt to give an account of 
his life, or to portray his character. ^ This belongs to 
those who knew him in the labors of manhood, and 
in the preparation of earlier years. Most of us saw 
only the fruits of the ripened autumn, — the full- 
grown virtues of a long life of conscientious labor 
and self-discipline. It was a character of which, 
when present, men took example, and, now it is 
gone, to be held in remembrance. 

He has been described as eminently just, — as if 
this were his characteristic quality. I think I should 
have described the predominant feature of his char- 
acter somewhat differently. It seemed to me that 
he was characterized, not by any one quality, but 
most remarkably by a combination of several, which 
are often exhibited separately in a high degree, but 
are rarely found united. He had a love of truth, as 
well as a love of right, and he added to them a 
humane heart, showing itself alike in a large public 
spirit, in private benevolence, and in a generous con- 
sideration of others. He certainly was distinguished 



* Judge Charles Jackson. 
27 



314 



THE MEMORIAL OF VIRTUE. 



for an intellectual rectitude, — a desire for truth, a 
love of, not what truth will bring, but truth itself, 
which in many exists as a sort of intellectual crav- 
ing, but with little care about its moral applications. 
So there are just men who are not humane, but are 
hard and cold and severe ; and there are humane 
men who are satisfied with the indulgence of the 
sympathetic emotions, without troubling themselves 
about the truth or right involved in the matter. In 
him they were combined, — the moral decision, and 
the act, preceded by a most scrupulous examination 
into the truth of the facts or opinions on which they 
were founded. He was never, like most of us, satis- 
fied to feel first, and then to use his mind's faculties 
to defend the accidental course thus taken. He 
had that balance of qualities which is so rare. And 
in an age of competition and struggle, when theo- 
ries of division of labor are carried into morals as 
well as affairs, — when so many influences tend to 
create maimed, irregular, and fragmentary charac- 
ters, monstrous on one side, dwarfed - on another, — 
it is well for us to consider that the true manhood 
is not an exaggeration of one quality, but the har- 
monious development of all. These great funda- 
mental qualities appeared in the most ordinary de- 
tails of life ; for he was not one 

" Great for an hour, heroic for a scene, 
Inert through all the common life between." 

They appeared in the simplicity and directness of 
his mind, and in the simple dignity and seemingly 
unconscious courtesy of his manners. They ap- 
peared in the refinement and delicacy of his moral 



THE MEMORIAL OP VIRTUE, 



315 



tastes, in the equity of his judgments, in the seren- 
ity of a self-controlled and cheerful temper, and in 
the disposition to exact less of others than of him- 
self. He loved children. The unfortunate among 
his early friends were never forgotten. The com- 
peers of his early professional life, and those who 
followed him in the same profession, seem to have 
estimated him highly, almost in proportion as they 
were brought into contact with him. A quarter of 
a century's retirement and the influx of new and 
honored names did not efface their respect for him. 
His affectionate nature was so strong, that all who 
were brought into its sphere, not only loved him, 
but loved one another the better. He had nothing 
of the overbearing temper which so often belongs 
to powerful and penetrating minds and decided 
wills. He was the best of listeners, evidently hold- 
ing his judgment in suspense till he had heard all 
that another, child or man, had to say. He had a 
high and large sense of public duty. He was con- 
servative, but his conservatism was not of the kind 
which cares not what becomes of the world, provided 
itself be peaceful and prosperous. He was not an 
agitator, nor a revolutionist, nor a professional re- 
former, but an improver, — one who took the hear- 
tiest interest in the improvement of society, — one 
who took, not a, theoretical, but the actual world, 
the actual sky and sun and soil, and endeavored to 
make the best of them. And for the last half-cen- 
tury I doubt if there has been an important institu- 
tion or enterprise, which has proved to be for the real 
progress of this community, with which he was not 



316 



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in some way influentially connected. I doubt if 
there was a place in the city where those engaged 
in any wise movement for the improvement of so- 
ciety met with a heartier sympathy than in the 
sunshiny chamber where he spent his age. 

I have been told by members of his own profes- 
sion, who knew him from the beginning, that he was 
distinguished for firmness and courage, and for a 
certain chivalric and resolute temper. I think this 
might have been suggested to any one by his intel- 
lectual and moral directness. Neither his mind nor 
conscience had any indirect or circuitous methods. 
He went straight to the point, by the most sun- 
lighted road. And this is rarely the case with the 
timid, but only with the brave and single-minded. 

His religious faith was simple and trusting. His 
idea of practical religion might have been summed 
up, I think, in the words of the Prophet, — " to do 
justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before God." 
And the most complex creeds will hardly carry one 
above this. 

His old age was one to be held in the memory. 
The ardor and fervor for which, we are told, he was 
remarkable in earlier years, subdued under a serene 
and cultivated self-control ; his mind undimmed ; 
his heart unchilled ; all that he most loved in his 
near neighborhood ; his intellectual tastes expanding 
into larger circles of reading and thought, rather than 
contracting, with age ; occupied but not engrossed 
by the affairs of the day ; tranquil, cheerful, self- 
governed, trusting in God, enjoying life, prepared to 
die, — it was an age that all men loved to look on. 



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317 



A little more than nine years ago, in a calm and 
lovely day of early autumn, a younger brother, re- 
markable for every gift of active life, and with a 
heart as just and with a nature of as fine a temper 
as his own, was borne to the grave. Their bodies 
were borne to the grave. I think such brotherly 
affection goes beyond the tomb. It is the dust only 
that returns to the dust. Life's discipline over, the 
spirits of the just are with God. 

"When such a man dies, the first thought is of loss 
to the survivors. A light is darkened in the com- 
munity, a pillar is withdrawn, and from the domes- 
tic system the central orb, around which all revolved, 
is gone. A void is left for them not to be filled. It 
is on this aspect of death that we are apt to dwell. 
But perhaps not justly. A few verses before the 
text it reads, " Call no man happy till he dies." 
Death, whose frost blights so many fictions and pre- 
tences, sets the seal of immortality on virtue. But 
when one in the fulness of years departs, — one who 
has fulfilled his course, who has won from life its 
treasures of justice and kindness and reverential 
trust, to whom this mortal discipline has imparted its 
richness and strength, and whose soul, having been 
faithful, is prepared for other scenes, — something 
surely is to be thought of beside grief and loss. 
Soldiers have thought it triumph to die in the mo- 
ment of some great victory. The death of a good 
man is the triumphant conclusion of the long con- 
flict of life. His work is done. No earthly shadow 
shall fall on him. So much is secure. The infirmi- 
ties of the body dropped, the immortal affections of 

27 * 



318 



THE MEMORIAL OF VIRTUE. 



the soul restored to their natural youth, the happy 
ending of this life the happiest omen for another, — 
what death, even in your dreams, could you wish 
for better than this ? Whatever the grief felt by 
those left behind, there should be mingled with it 
and rising above it a profound gratitude and joy, 
that one who was loved and honored had thus 
passed triumphantly through the perils of life, and 
been victorious unto the end. When a good man 
dies, it becomes us to think, not merely of death and 
its brief partings, but of the life within him and the 
life beyond. Virtue and faith annihilate the dark 
meanings of death. 

I do not pretend to give any careful, and still less 
a complete, view of the character of him whom we 
have lost. I have a different object. I have in 
mind those who are entering life, whose career is 
yet to be run, whose choice of direction is still more 
or less free. Were I to speak of the worth of virtue 
in general, all that I could say would be so obvious, 
that it would hardly arrest the attention. But I will 
hope the declaration of the text, that of all earthly 
interests and ends virtue weareth the crown, may be 
made impressive by this attendant commentary of a 
character which you all knew and honored. 

The moral result of life, what you shall be morally 
at its conclusion, can be no matter of accident. The 
very idea of virtue implies purpose, choice, will. 
And a virtuous character is not the product of an 
hour, but' of the life. Every one, though we are not 
half conscious of it, chooses the character he shall 
finally have. He will never be better than he wishes 



THE MEMORIAL OF VIRTUE. 



319 



and wills to be. Now the very first condition of a 
right choice is a right estimate of human attain- 
ments. The most fatal difficulty in the way of a 
right life is the want of faith in the reality and the 
worth of virtue. An atheist may have elevated pur- 
poses, but the infidel to virtue sees nothing in it 
even to be sought. In the practical life nothing is 
so important at the foundation, and few things so 
neglected, as the clear, well-considered, settled con- 
viction, that of all we can gain or lose on earth 
a righteous character is the supreme good. Not 
amusement, not happiness, not health, not prosper- 
ity, not any worldly distinction, but a righteous 
character. Let us apply a test to this truth. You 
knew him who is gone. Suppose, by sacrificing 
some portion of his generous interest in the wel- 
fare of others, he had been much more prosperous, 
by disregarding the rights of others, or by any un- 
scrupulous means, had gained places of power and 
distinction, would any of these outward prizes have 
compensated for the loss of the virtues ? Nay, could 
he have gained all for which men struggle, by al- 
lowing, consciously, the existence of one bad habit, 
running like a fault in the precious marble through 
his character, would they not have been gained at a 
deadly cost ? You would have said, now that he is 
gone, We have rich men enough, and learned men 
enough, and ambitious men enough and to spare, 
but give us back the simplicity and dignity of a vir- 
tuous manhood, that we may have it to think of and 
to honor and to be inspired by. In thinking of the 
dead, we never doubt that of all earthly goods vir- 
tue wears the crown. 



320 



THE MEMORIAL OF VIRTUE. 



A character of virtuous wisdom, simplicity, and 
dignity is the noblest product of the earth. It is the 
greatest gift of God to society. So precious is it in 
God's sight, that to produce this fairest work is the 
great end of all this varied discipline of joy and 
trial, the struggles of life, the influences of nature, 
the lessons of Providence, the teachings of the Bible. 
This is the great end of all, — to build up human 
souls in righteousness. When such men exist, they 
are the treasures of society. Were there none such, 
the world would be a desert. But so long as any 
remain, in palaces or hovels, in humble places or 
high, life is elevated by their presence. They are 
perpetual reminders of what all in their degree might 
be. Their presence rebukes our poor aims and at- 
tainments. They stimulate our aspirations, and give 
an ideal standard to heart and mind and conscience. 
So precious a thing is it in God's sight, that he does 
not hesitate to subject his children to severest trial 
that they may reach this highest good, — leading 
them to the crown, if there be no other way, even 
by the cross. We are taught, in the striking lan- 
guage of the wise man in connection with the text, 
" The true beginning of wisdom for a man is the 
desire of discipline," — the desire to be trained in 
her ways. At first she will walk with him by diffi- 
cult and crooked paths, and bring fear and dread 
upon him, and torment him with . her discipline, 
until she can trust his soul. Then will she return 
unto him and comfort him, and show him her se- 
crets. And when we behold one who has followed 
her, and see how the discipline which at first tor- 



THE MEMORIAL OF VIRTUE. 



321 



merited by its restriction has become a strength, and 
the self-denial been transformed into self-control, 
and the outward tasks develop the inward power, 
and the struggle has conquered a higher peace, and 
the steep and rocky hill has led up to serene hopes, 
we acknowledge that this man has done well 'to fol- 
low wisdom, and that, of all the sovereignties of the 
world, the virtue to which she would conduct him 
weareth the crown. 

But the sceptic in virtue says that such men are 
powerless, or, in the language of the objector of old, 
it is in vain to serve God. The loud tongue, the 
grasping hand, the unscrupulous will, carry the day. 
Perhaps too much, but not always. In the last re- 
sort, wisdom and uprightness have a peculiar power, 
which belongs to nothing else. Let me draw an 
illustration from the character we have been review- 
ing. For more than thirty years he had withdrawn 
from public life. His retirement went beyond the 
ordinary meaning of the word. He held no place to 
attract the ambitious. He mingled in affairs no fur- 
ther than to perform the simple duties of a private 
citizen. He was one whom the huzzaing crowd 
pass by. He had no place among them. In these 
great excitements of the day, when it seems as if we 
were never more than half in earnest except in our 
love of excitement, he was forgotten. And yet not 
forgotten. When a great and real work was to be 
done, when it was desired to give shape and sim- 
plicity and clearness to law, and so strengthen the 
authority of justice and the foundations of the Com- 
monwealth, he was remembered and sought for. 



322 



THE MEMORIAL OF VIRTUE. 



In agitated times, when complex questions of morals 
and law and statesmanship divided men, and the 
State was shaken by conflicting passions, to whom 
did we go for counsel sooner than to him ? There 
was no one among us who did not stand stronger 
when * sustained by his judgment, and few who 
would not have thought it at least worth the while 
to revise and confirm the reasons for an opposite 
conclusion. And why ? Not merely because of his 
wisdom. Others might or might not be wiser than 
he. But because from him, as we thought, we 
might derive a judgment signally unbiassed by 
passion, un bribed by interest. Because he was 
one whose wisdom was penetrated by a prevail- 
ing, vitalizing love of virtue and truth. Such men 
are not forgotten. Amidst the clamor of tran- 
sient passions, and the conflict of unimportant 
events, they are unheeded. But when the crisis 
comes, when it is seen that there can be no more 
trifling, men know where they are. They have not 
lost sight of them. They know where to find a 
leader at the plough, and the exile in the desert, and 
the prophet in his solitary cave. In life they are not 
forgotten, and when they are gone are still remem- 
bered. They are installed among the standards of 
human worth, and become a part of the moral in- 
spiration which blesses those who follow them. 

But the sceptic as to the worth of virtue objects, 
as of old, that while vice triumphs and flourishes, 
righteousness toils and denies itself without success. 
In answer, I say that I know not why virtue should 
expect to monopolize all the successes of life, and so 



THE MEMORIAL OF VIRTUE. 



323 



destroy its own best discipline and antedate the ret- 
ributions ofanother world, reducing the sublimity of a 
continued and connected moral existence to the nar- 
row point of the passing day. But virtue is no dis- 
qualification for any reasonable success. This, how- 
ever, does not touch the real difficulty, which lies in 
the false judgment as to what success is. What is 
the successful life ? Of these hundreds of dying 
men, whom do you single out as the truly success- 
ful ? Let the miser's gains be beyond counting, yet 
if he has lost the grace of a generous, kind, and 
sympathetic heart, though prosperous in his affairs, 
he has failed as a man. The ambitious man, 
though loaded with honors, if he has become jeal- 
ous, false, and time-serving, though he sit on a 
throne, has not succeeded as a man. Whatever 
one's outward fortunes, prosperous or adverse, no 
man's life is successful which has not grown in vir- 
tue. Let me die the death of the righteous, was the 
prayer of one in old time. It expressed the univer- 
sal sentiment. If one fail of attaining the virtues of 
a right character, his life has not been worth the liv- 
ing. The attainment of a Christian manhood is the 
success of life. And in the sight of wise men, of 
angels, and of God, he who has attained it, no mat- 
ter how he lives or where he dies, has triumphed 
over the world, and gained the victory over death. 

But my object is not to vindicate the worth of 
virtue. Our own memories of the past, the homage 
paid to heroism, the respect which a conscientious 
purpose commands, the whole moral order of the 
universe, make man's words idle and superfluous. 



324 



THE MEMORIAL OF VIRTUE. 



But what I would urge as not superfluous, as some- 
thing of the highest moment to every one, is to have 
a definite moral plan of life, — a plan of life, to know 
what you are living for, to know what moral results 
in character you would be satisfied to have at the 
end. He that enters any profession or business has 
some general idea of what he means to do or be. 
He goes through the severest discipline, rising early 
and watching late to attain the end, often a poor 
and indifferent one. He has a plan of life, to which 
in a greater or less degree everything is made to con- 
form. Without it he accomplishes nothing. Does 
any one expect to attain the virtues of a simple, just, 
and righteous soul at a cheaper rate and with less 
forethought and care ? Does any one expect to 
stumble by accident into an elevated character? 
However it may be with one's secular fortunes, there 
is no accident in the laws or the progress of the soul. 
Nature and Providence weigh here with even bal- 
ances. There is no harvest where there has been no 
seed-time ; and just as has been the seed-time, idle, 
selfish, or profligate, or faithful and loyal to good 
uses and holy ends, just such will be the harvest. 
No man will long have any virtue which rises above 
the level of his prevailing moral aims. And if left 
to itself, the moral plan of life will in most cases be- 
fore long be a poor and a low one ; for it will con- 
stantly be lowered by the steady, urgent pressure of 
the appetites and passions. Therefore know what 
you mean to live for, what you are willing to live 
for, what you are willing to present before the judg- 
ment-seat as the product of your life. Let your 



THE MEMORIAL OF VIRTUE. 



325 



plan of life be one which shall be as favorable as 
possible to the cultivation of the highest virtues, one 
that shall keep you out of the way of bad influences 
and in the way of good ones. Let it embrace habits 
of usefulness, of kindness, of public spirit, and of 
piety to God. Consider that the companionship, 
the reading, the employments, and the amusements, 
which damage your regard for truth, or soil your 
purity, or chill to a lower temperature your. moral 
feelings, must be excluded from your plan of life. 
Have a plan of life, and abide by it, which shall 
make you every year wiser, more truth-loving, more 
humane and useful among men, more loyal to your 
Maker. There is no one so trifling who does not 
make plans beforehand for pleasure or profit or repu- 
tation. Be not wise for trifles, and frivolous in re- 
gard to that for which you are created. Have the 
moral plan and purpose and fixed determination of 
the will to subdue your life to the laws of a Chris- 
tain manhood. For without fidelity on your part, 
neither nature nor providence, nor Christ's death, nor 
God's grace, will ever give you the virtues which 
have on them the stamp of immortality. And when 
shall such a plan be better framed, than when the 
closing year is reminding us of weakness and of fail- 
ure, and reminding us too of the shortness and un- 
certainty of life ? The almighty Providence has 
spared us another year. Has it been for our good 
or our harm ? In the moral account which the year 
-bears up to heaven, is there witness borne to your 
growing virtues ? It is a fearful thing to stand at 
the closing gates of the departing year, and to be 



326 



THE MEMORIAL OF VIRTUE. 



compelled to say, The year has been lost : I am no 
wiser or better ; and if I am always to live thus, bet- 
ter that I had not been born. That is a miserable 
man who prospers only in his affairs, and grows poor 
in the virtues and affections of a righteous soul. 
Then while I make the uncertainty of life no ground 
of superstitious appeal, still the fact of that uncer- 
tainty remains, and in every wise man's account it 
is a most serious one. We may know that there is 
a certain average length of life ; but we also know 
this, that there will be a certain proportion of those 
who begin the year with us who will not see the 
end of it. Whether the young or the aged, those 
in sickness or those in health, shall be called, — 
whose name shall be drawn from the urn, — no man 
can foretell ; but we know that in a few years we 
shall all be gone. The fever of life will be over ; its 
transient successes and reverses will have melted out 
of thought, like bubbles on a stream ; the snows of 
winter will fall on our graves, and nothing will re- 
main but what we bear with us in the soul. And 
in that heavenly world which we at least hope to 
enter, one kind affection, a more settled principle of 
rectitude, a grateful heart, will be worth more than 
the prizes of the round world. These are not count- 
ed in heaven. Then while life is yours, and choice 
is yours, and there is time and room, establish in the 
soul some definite and fixed plan of living, which 
shall look forward to the immortal life and upward 
to Christ and to God. 



SEEMON XXIII. 



STILLNESS OF MIND. 

BE STILL, AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD. — Psalm xlvi. 10. 

It is in the calmness of the soul, — not when its 
passions are awake, not in its insensibility, but in 
its calmness, — that we become most conscious of 
the Divine Presence. Thus the prophet sought his 
cave ; and the patriarch went out at eventide to 
meditate ; and Jesus found, on the solitary summit 
of the mountain, a place where he might be alone 
to pray. But, forgetting these great examples, we 
spend our days in restlessness and hurry, amidst the 
struggling and competing crowd, and beset by the 
stings and goads of ceaseless excitements. Man 
and the works of man come between the eye and 
the works of the Almighty, till, enslaved to the 
senses, it seems to us as if there were nothing in the 
universe except these human contrivances and pro- 
jects and interests. We need, more than the patri- 
arch of old, to go forth at eventide to meditate, and 
to seek in the quietness of the heart the presence of 
God. 



328 



STILLNESS OF MIND. 



The text implies, what all experience affirm?, that 
stillness and retirement of mind are necessary to the 
appreciation of spiritual truth. Those truths are as 
simple as they are sublime : but we come to a just 
appreciation of them not so much through processes 
of reasoning as by the direct perceptions of the 
awakened soul. And that appreciation is always 
most clear and vivid in the stillness of the mind. 

Stillness of mind ! "What meaning in these words. 
Be still, and know that I am God! The command 
and the all-sufficient reason ! Here is one of the 
truths learned in the stillness of the mind. Be still ! 
Yes, this is the first step to knowing anything of 
God. While I am engaged in the stir and struggle 
of daily business, the sounds of the wharf, the street, 
and the workshop in my ear, how hard to think 
of anything beyond ! Man is too near. His words 
rill my ear and shut out all divine voices. Every- 
thing that connects man with earth is awake, but 
the soul sleeps. Were we never alone, were we 
compelled to live always in a crowd, man would so 
fill our eyes and thoughts, and thus so exclude the 
thought of God, that it may be doubted whether, by 
a kind of mechanical influence, we should not be- 
come atheists. 

Let us leave man and man's works, and go abroad 
into the heart of the natural world and learn some 
of its lessons. Summer has brought back its ver- 
dure and its bloom. As you leave the crowd of men 
and enter the retreats of nature, you are at first 
struck with the silence. The rattling of a wheel on 
the stones, the lowing of the herds, even a word 



STILLNESS OF MIND. 



329 



spoken, is heard from a strange distance. But pres- 
ently, and it is with a feeling of awe, you become 
sensible of other sounds. There are the cattle on a 
thousand hills, the birds in the trees ; and from the 
grass rise myriad insect voices. The world of man 
is left behind, and you are introduced into a new 
universe of sights and sounds. The air is peopled 
with inhabitants unmarked before, the earth is peo- 
pled, every wave throws on the beach new forms of 
life, and the sunshine is full of glistening insect 
wings. As the mind pauses silently on such a scene, 
it does not reason or question, it feels and knows, 
that there is a God. But it is not merely animated 
existence ; the most striking peculiarity is that it is 
happy existence. Songs begin with the morning, 
and only end with the night. The voice of wailing 
comes only from human dwellings. You cannot 
count the infinite variety of sounds in nature, and 
all musical, — the singing of happy animal life. The 
lives of animals may be brief, but ordinarily death 
comes suddenly, and there is nothing of that antici- 
pation of the last hour, and that dread forelooking 
of an hereafter, which gives the sting to death. If 
anything is evident, it is that, to the animate crea- 
tion, life is almost invariably a series of agreeable 
sensations, a constant happiness, — a happiness, if 
destitute of the benefits, unalloyed also by the fears 
and pangs and pains, which come with the reason- 
able and accountable nature of man. 

These countless forms of animal life cannot pro- 
vide for themselves ; yet they are all taken care of, — 
from birth to death they are all taken care of ; all 
28 * 



330 



STILLNESS OF MffiD. 



that is needed for a happy existence is provided. 
As I look on such a scene, I understand that our 
Saviours words are to be taken literally. — I want 
no commentary of books upon them; Nature attests 
and explains his words, when he says, Not a lily 
blossoms, not a hair of the head, not a sparrow, falls 
to the ground without your Father's notice ; how 
much more then will he care for you, O ye of 
little faith! Come, ye who doubt the goodness of 
God, and the reality of his providence ; here is not 
the vague, far-distant proof of it, — here is the verv 
reality, here is the thing itself. It shines in the light, 
it flows in the streams, it bathes these summer fields 
in hues of beauty, it is proclaimed in the motions 
and sounds of animal life, — the goodness of God! 
From all this wide horizon, from the flowing waters, 
and the bosom of the bountiful earth, spreading her 
table for the nations, comes a voice, declaring that 
God is good ! From these shifting and shining 
clouds, from the depths of the clear, blue heavens, is 
uttered the name of God ! Man may utter false- 
hoods, he may feign and belie his convictions, but 
Nature has no art to deceive, and here is the worth 
of her testimony ; — the infinite goodness shines 
through all her forms, and you see it, as you see the 
sun's light. They are no words of poetic fancy, but 
here you feel them to be words of soberest truth, — 

" The birds that rise on soaring wing 
Appear to hymn their Maker's praise ; 
And all the mingled sounds of spring 
To thee a general peean raise." 

But there is a more impressive voice than that of 



STILLNESS OF MUSTD. 



331 



Nature which speaks of God, — a voice from the 
human soul : — and here the command becomes 
more imperative, Be still, and know that I am God! 
When philosophers would adduce evidence of the 
existence of God, they are accustomed to appeal to 
the works of nature, the wonderful frame of man, 
the myriad forms of life, the worlds that fill the skies, 
the laws that reach from the plant to the stars, and 
bind all in one harmonious whole. The evident 
design, the beneficent purpose, the sublimity of plan, 
obtrude themselves on our senses, and compel us to 
acknowledge the Creator. But the evidence which 
appears when we look into the human mind is still 
more impressive. It is so from the very absence of 
all mechanical arrangements. We can take the 
human body apart, and understand something of its 
arrangements, and the forces that act within it. Ex- 
cept the principle of life, there are parts of it whose 
construction we can almost imitate. We can help 
the shattered hand, the darkened eye, the sealed ear. 
But come to the soul, and here is something beyond 
not only our feeblest imitations, but something that 
we do not understand. Chemist and physiologist 
make no approaches towards it. We can account 
for its existence from no mechanical contrivance, 
from no spontaneous birth. Each new soul comes 
forward, as wondrous, as miraculous a thing, in all 
save the novelty, as Adam in Eden. 

Whence comes this reasoning mind, — of large 
discourse, — with memory and forecast reaching out, 
like two vast peninsulas, into the dreary ocean of 
the Past and the Future, — these affections that tri- 



332 



STILLNESS Or MIND. 



umph over the grave and follow the shining track of 
angels, — these unsounded depths of awe and hope 
and fear, — these capacities whose largest develop- 
ment is only an omen of their infinite reach, — 
whence came the human mind ? If a ship is not 
built by chance, if the construction of the commonest 
engine is the work of mind, — the mind itself which 
frames ships and engines, and holds laws and com- 
monwealths in its embrace, can be no chance work. 
The existence of a single mind takes us at once to 
the creating mind of the universe. 

And there is more than original creation. The 
aspirations of the soul, never satisfied with anything 
short of the infinite, take us up to heaven. And the 
conscience, which is meaningless except as it repre- 
sents the moral law of God, which associates us 
with the moral order of the universe, and is a perpet- 
ual connecting link between the soul and its Maker, 
— the conscience, whatever our theory respecting its 
nature, is always the divine voice in the soul. And 
whose life has been so forsaken that he has not been 
constrained to say, Once, yea twice, God hath 
spoken to me ; in my sorrow he hath comforted and 
in my sin he hath corrected me. God is present in 
holier thoughts, in more heavenly aspirations, in the 
gentle restraint when we are going astray, in the en- 
couragement when we despond, in the providence 
that guards and protects. 

But when and where and how shall we hear these 
divine voices ? Only in the stillness of the mind. 
They come not in the thunder and the earthquake, 
but are still and low. In the clamor of the passions, 



STILLNESS OF MIND. 



333 



in the noise of the world, we do not hear them. But 
be alone, and be still, and in the calmness the soul 
feels and knows the presence of God. Therefore 
the guilty flee from solitude, because God speaks in 
the silence. They would put other men between 
them and their Maker. And therefore will the de- 
vout seek retirement, for in retired hours the divine 
presence is nearest, and immortal truths reveal them- 
selves to mortal eyes. You have seen a lake em- 
bosomed in the hills. In the morning, while the 
winds swept over it, you could see only the glitter- 
ing surface, tossed into spangles of light, which, 
instead of revealing, did but hide the depths below. 
But the winds went down, and the waters grew 
calm as those over which the feet of the Saviour 
passed ; and there, in the calmness, its depths were 
disclosed, its rim of shining sands, and the reflection 
of the forests and the skies, and, as night came 
down, the everlasting stars. So it is in the calm 
and silent soul ; when the passions are hushed, and 
this superficial disturbance of the world is stilled, 
the great truths of heaven are reflected there. 

Be still, and know that I am God ! These words 
have scarcely less application to us than to those 
who first heard them. We come to a belief that 
there is a Sovereign Creator and Sustainer of the. 
Universe. But all this may be, and still we may 
have no feeling that he is really God, that he is the 
actual ruler and disposer of all things, that these 
heavens are but the symbols of his presence, and 
these summer airs and genial rains and springing 
harvests are but the present manifestations of his 



334 



STILLNESS OF MIND. 



benignity. When I murmur at trial, or am impa- 
tient for some success, and wish to make my own 
will sovereign, can I be said to feel that the Creator 
is God ? When every evil and calamity, and every- 
thing that seems to go wrong, makes me despond 
and despair, can I believe in the reality of a Provi- 
dence ? The text addresses itself to these half-be- 
lievers. Thou who art troubled with many things, 
who art thrown into despair by disappointed hopes, 
crushed into the dust by misfortune or sorrow, do 
not imagine that your true good is dependent on 
worldly success ; know that I am God, that these 
things come not by accident, that I am near you in 
these trials, that I visit you in these sorrows, and 
that I take you by this rocky and thorny road be- 
cause it is the only one that leads to the soul's 
peace. 

And thou who art walking in sin, know that it is 
no dream of superstition, no lie of priestcraft, that I 
am God ! In the penalties that rush or creep on 
guilty deeds, in the spectral memories that dog and 
haunt your steps, in the vague fears that come and 
sit by you in lonely hours, by the calm of a good 
conscience, by the stings of a guilty one, know that 
I dwell not apart, heedless of man, but that I am 
God, ruling the world in righteousness. 

Is the world still oppressed by evil deeds and evil 
men, does selfishness triumph over mercy and jus- 
tice, is there wrong and oppression and error in the 
world, and does the Lord's hand seem slack and 
does he delay his coming, and do you lose faith be- 
cause all things are not done in the way and as 



STILLNESS OF MIND. 



335 



speedily as you wish ? Do you grow faithless be- 
cause your efforts to do good bear so little fruit ? 
Let your doubts be still. The Lord reigns. If 
your plans fail, doubt not that it is well they should 
fail ; and if He waits a thousand years for the slow 
progress of man, think it not hard that you should 
wait a day. 

The greatest of all questions which a human 
being ever asks himself is, in cases of uncertainty 
and doubt, What is right ? Answer that question, 
as it is brought up by one and another emergency, 
and the greatest problem of life is solved. How 
shall we reach a just answer to such a question ? 

Our most common method is to fly to man. We 
congregate together ; we must hear what others 
have to say ; we discuss and agitate and harangue. 
Almost before we have begun to think, we are com- 
mitted to a side ; we would impose our views on 
others ; we are intolerant of independent judgment; 
our passions move quicker than reason ; and pride, 
anger, indignation, distrust, and bitterness flood the 
intellect and sweep it away, or use it as they will. 
In the heated crowd, fevered with passion, we may 
find impulse enough, if that were what we needed ; 
but surely it is no place in which to settle any se- 
rious question of duty. The conflagration of the 
passions, sweeping above and around in fiery eddies, 
excludes the higher light of truth, till to seek it 
there is as if the astronomer should attempt to study 
the laws of the heavenly bodies through the smoke 
of a battle. The scene of excitement has its uses, 
but it is not the place in which to determine a ques- 
tion of duty. 



336 



STILLNESS OF MIND. 



Neither can the intellect, acting alone, be safely 
trusted to settle a question of duty. And the con- 
• elusive reason, apart from all other considerations, 
is this. Every question of duty is a mixed one, 
partly intellectual and partly moral. The intellect 
has its office ; it collects statistics, arranges facts, 
determines the truth of statements ; still further, it 
can calculate the utility of one course or another ; 
but the intellect, acting independently and alone, 
cannot decide a question of duty. When it has col- 
lected the materials, those other elements of man's 
nature, by virtue of which alone he has an idea of 
duty, and feels its binding authority, and is con- 
scious of harmony or discord between himself and 
right, must be called in. Every faculty of man has 
its office. The office of the intellect is to determine 
truth. It can settle a question of natural science. 
But by itself alone it can be no more competent to 
decide a question of duty, than the conscience is 
competent to decide a fact in physical science. 

For a similar reason, a mere appeal to the con- 
science is not enough. I do not mean by this mere- 
ly — what nevertheless is true — that the conscience 
is liable to error, is easily shaped to our wishes or 
passions, and is open to all kinds of misleading 
sophistries ; but I mean that what we term the con- 
science does not include all the elements of man's 
nature which ought to be appealed to in determin- 
ing a question of right. Above the conscience, — its 
life, — without which it would wither into a mean- 
ingless phrase, is the religious sentiment, connecting 
conscience and intellect with God. The decision of 



STILLNESS OP MIND. 



337 



a question of duty, always the most solemn act that 
a human being can perform, rightly demands the co- 
operation of all man's spiritual faculties. The in- 
tellect collects facts, but it belongs to the conscience 
to decide on their moral bearings, acting with a con- 
scious reference to the approval and the will of Al- 
mighty God. I do not say that an imperfect being 
like man can, under any circumstances and with all 
the light of nature and revelation to aid him, rely 
on his judgments as infallible ; but he who does 
what I have described, faithfully, even when wrong- 
in his judgment if measured by absolute truth, will, 
relatively to himself, be right. 

I return now to the question, What is the best 
course for me to take in endeavoring to determine, 
in any doubtful case, what is my duty ? And, borne 
out by the laws of man's nature and the declara- 
tions of revelation, I reply in the words of the text, 
for they suggest the whole answer, " Be still, and 
know that I am God! " In many things it is proper 
to ask merely what is pleasant, what will gratify the 
taste, what will be useful. But in deciding a ques- 
tion of duty, the appeal is made to what is highest 
and best in a man, and the answer must come 
thence, or it will only cheat and lead astray. The 
primary necessity is to separate one's self from the 
urgencies of the passions. We have come to a 
question which no crowd can settle by vote or reso- 
lution. And what is more, no other human beings, 
much as they may help us, can settle it for us. I 
would summon up the best counsellors. I would be 
out of the sound of human voices. Then is the time 

29 



338 



STILLNESS OF MIND. 



for retirement. Be still, and know only that with 
you is God. One hour in these summer fields alone, 
in the silence of nature, with a heart that looks in 
prayer to Him who is above the open heavens, is 
worth more in determining a question of duty, than 
ages of rhetoric and libraries of logic. An hour in 
this place, before the memorials of Christ, with the 
heart seeking God's guidance, has in it more wis- 
dom than all the oracles philosophy ever uttered. 
Evil suggestions fade away from the consciousness 
of the Divine presence. The mind acts in an un- 
embarrassed sphere ; it is placed in a right position, 
and is open to the unbewildered light of truth. The 
intellect will seek truth most faithfully when the 
heart seeks God most truly. Prayer does not take 
the place of reasoning, but the reason finds guidance 
and protection in prayer. I do not say that even 
under these circumstances one will always judge 
aright ; but he will judge rightly for himself. He 
has done the best he can, and will never repent of it. 
In this reverential and prayerful seeking for right, 
one is not likely to go astray ; and such a spirit will 
correct its own errors. The prompting of such an 
hour it is generally wise for one to follow, and no 
man ever yet regretted that he was governed in his 
acts by the spirit of such an hour. In seeking what 
is right, when you have used other means, have 
some religious retirement of mind. With a prayer- 
ful heart, be still, and alone, conscious that God is 
with you. 

From life and from death, from nature and the 
human soul, comes the response to the command, 



STILLNESS OF MIND. 



339 



" Be still, and know that I am God." Thus saith 
the high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity, whose 
name is Holy, I have made the earth, the man and 
the beast that are upon the ground. I form light 
and create darkness. He sitteth upon the circle of 
the earth, he stretcheth forth the heavens, he maketh 
a way in the sea. All nations before him are as 
nothing. He bringeth princes to nothing, and rais- 
eth the poor out of the dust. The Lord reigneth. 
The heavens declare his glory, the firmament show- 
eth forth his handiwork. The voice of the Lord 
is full of majesty, he judgeth among the mighty ; 
let the earth therefore tremble and keep silence be- 
fore him. The works of man perish, but the works 
of God endure for ever. In a changing world, 
amidst the crumbling pillars of human pride, and 
the blight of human policy, and the wreck of human 
hope, it shall be the refuge of man, that God re- 
mains the same. Be still, thou mourning heart, and 
know that it is God who sendeth sorrow, as he send- 
eth joy. Be still, trembling and timid soul, and put 
your trust in God, and his arm shall bear you up as 
you walk over the waves. Be still, guilty heart, 
and, when sin tempts, remember Him who is judge 
of quick and dead. Be still, desponding and dis- 
trustful soul, who art thrown into despair by the 
delay of good, or seeming triumph of wrong, and 
fear not, but wait, for the Lord God omnipotent 
reigneth, 



SERMON XXIV. 



OPPORTUNITY AND PREPARATION. 

THEN SHALL THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN BE LIKENED UNTO TEN 
VIRGINS, WHO TOOK THEIR LAMPS AND WENT EORTH TO MEET 
THE BRIDEGROOM. — Matt. XXV. 1. 

This is one of a remarkable series of parables, all 
bearing on one general point, — the necessity of be- 
ing ready to meet the call of God in the occasions 
and opportunities, in the duties and trials, of life. 
The repetition of the lesson, its different applications 
and the solemn forms under which it is inculcated, 
show how great is the importance attached to it by 
our Saviour. We say, Do this or that when the 
hour comes. The Saviour says, Be ready for the 
hour. He does not look chiefly to the final act, but 
to the preceding condition of the character. Make 
the tree good, keep the heart right, and the fruit will 
be good, and the words pure. 

Immediately preceding this, we have the parable 
of the householder who leaves his servants in charge 
of his goods, in which we find the same lesson : lt Be 
ye also ready, for in an hour when ye think not, the 



OPPORTUNITY AND PREPARATION. 



341 



Son of man cometh." So also in another place, 
when exhorting men to lay up treasure in heaven : 
" Let your loins be girded about, and your lights 
burning, and ye yourselves like unto men that wait 
for their lord, when he will return from the wedding ; 
that when he cometh and knocketh they may open 
unto him immediately : blessed are those servants, 
whom their lord, when he cometh, shall find wait- 
ing." 

In the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, which 
occurs just before, the same principle is applied to 
the common duties of life. God gives us our tasks, 
proportioned to our ability. He never calls on us to 
do more than we have power to do; oftentimes men 
seem called on for less. They wait in the market- 
place, and no one employs them. Our lives run to 
waste, they say, and we have nothing to do in which 
we can satisfy ourselves, or be useful to men or serve 
God. To such our Saviour says, Fear not and de- 
spond not ; at the eleventh horn, if not at the third, 
you will be called. Your present duty is to wait, 
and to be ready. Almighty God, who can dispense 
with the labor of all of us, looks not so much at the 
magnitude of the work which we accomplish, as at 
the readiness to perform the works, humble or high, 
which are given us to do. 

In the parable of the virgins, reference is had to 
the call of God in the hour of death. It is still the 
same idea. Be ready for its coming. It will come 
alike to all, — to those whose lamps go out, and to 
those whose lamps are kept trimmed and burning. 
The difference is not in the coming of death, but in 

29 



342 



OPPORTUNITY AND PREPARATION . 



the preparation to meet it, " Watch, therefore, and 
be ye ready; for in such an hour as ye know not, 
the Son of man cometh." 

The same idea runs through all these passages. 
The great hours, the opportunities and exigencies of 
life, cannot be foreseen. The time when we shall 
be called, we know not, and the precept, founded on 
this uncertainty, is not one of apathy or sloth or neg- 
lect, but to be prepared. "We -shall meet the hour 
rightly only as we are prepared. Therefore, not 
knowing the hour, be ye ready, — ready as they who 
sit all night in the trenches, and watch in storm and 
snow and cold ; though worn and exhausted, watch- 
ing in darkness till the cold morning breaks ; ever 
ready, not knowing the hour. 

I apprehend that this is a lesson which it were 
well for us all to ponder. We rely on opportunities. 
The sluggish and the repining, beholding the use- 
fulness or virtue of this man or that man, attribute 
them to favoring circumstances, and say. Had the 
same opportunities come to us as to them, it would 
have been with us as with them. No one can deny 
the importance of the opportunity. The hour must 
conspire with the man ; and wish and will must be 
able at least to anticipate the occasion. But this is 
not all. 

1. The preparation in ourselves is, one might al- 
most say, a part of the outward opportunity. The 
previous preparation enables one man both to see 
and use the occasion, and the want of it incapaci- 
tates another either to see or profit from it. The 
preparation is like another eye given to man. An 



OPPORTUNITY AND PREPARATION. 



343 



ignorant man traverses barren mountains and desert 
sands, and finds nothing but desolation. The in- 
structed man follows just behind, and sees the evi- 
dences of an Eldorado under the desolate surface. 
The same opportunities of improvement or useful 
ness pass before a crowd ; but they are valueless 
except to those who are in some way prepared to 
see and use them. The greater the opportunity, the 
more essential the preparation of mind and heart. 
Great occasions arise ; and out of multitudes only 
a few can meet them. The rest, during the time of 
preparation, have waited as the foolish virgins waited. 
They have slept instead of watching. The will has 
become inert, the heart has lost its strenuous pur- 
poses, and when the hour arrives, the oil in their 
lamps is consumed, and it is now too late to supply 
the want. To them it is no opportunity, because 
they are unprepared. 

Herein lies the so common fruitlessness of good 
advice. You forewarn one of opportunities which 
may come, and give the counsels of experience; but 
you learn afterwards that all has been in vain. You 
then see that you had assumed the possession, by 
him whom you counselled, of qualities or attainments 
which did not belong to him. Your advice did not 
transfer to him the long previous training which 
gave to you its significance. When he began to 
act independently, he acted from his general level of 
mind and heart. He had neither understood you, 
nor the occasion. Without the preparation, it was 
in truth no opportunity to him, whatever it might 
seem to you. Not only is the hour important, but 



344 OPPORTUNITY AND PREPARATION. 

that preparation which puts one on a level with the 
hour. 

This idea controls all wise education. We do 
not rear the young to perform a single act ; but, not 
knowing what the exigencies of life may be, we give 
them a wider culture, that they may be prepared for 
the varied demands that will be made upon them. 
For, whatever the demands, there must be a readi- 
ness beforehand to meet them, or they will not be 
met. That is no opportunity to a child which is one 
to a man, nor to the ignorant savage which is so 
to him who is civilized. And so in all things, the 
preparation within us to see and act, in great part 
makes for us the opportunity. 

2. We must be ready for the hour, in order that we 
may derive from it its benefits. 

Life does not for any of us proceed in an even 
and unbroken line, but its regular order is perpetually 
interrupted by new occasions and new claims ; by 
unforeseen perils or opportunities ; landing-places in 
the ascent, where we may pause and correct the 
future by the past ; junctures, crises, partings by the 
way, on which we come suddenly ; the very turning- 
points of life, where what we do or leave undone 
decides the fate of years ; hours of decision and 
doom. These hours cannot be foreseen, yet they 
must be met, and they never leave us as they found 
us. Not only must they be met, but if we neglect 
them or are unfaithful to them, they are lost, and 
commonly for ever. For, in most cases, the same op- 
portunity is not repeated. We drift by the oppor- 
tunity, — following the significant derivation of the 



OPPORTUNITY AND PREPARATION. 



345 



word, drift by the port over against ivhich we lay, — 
and cannot put back to the point once past. We 
may have other opportunities and similar ones, but 
not the same. In secular affairs the neglect of op- 
portunities is the loss of success. In the moral life, 
this is more sadly true. We feel this, and therefore 
the great proportion of our regrets for the past are 
regrets for neglected opportunities. 

To excuse ourselves, we sometimes would make 
believe that we have lacked opportunities ; but our 
hearts repudiate the fiction. For all moral purposes 
we know it is not true. On the contrary, as we 
look back, along the way are the perpetual remind- 
ers of our unfaithfulness, — reminders more sad 
even than the crosses by the mountain pathways, 
marking our moral disasters. The neglected oppor- 
tunity of youth is the impoverishment of manhood. 
There is scarcely a serious regret, or discomfort, or 
debasing habit, or form of ignorance, — scarcely one of 
those causes which make men say, I would not will- 
ingly live life over again, — which is not connected 
with some lost opportunity in the past, some precious 
season squandered or misused, or given away for 
some inferior end, as savages give golden ingots for 
bawbles of glass. Alas, there was a time when we 
might have begun to be all that we value in others or 
dgsire for ourselves. There was a time for improve- 
ment in what since would have been so precious. 
There, and there, and there, were the parting ways 
where I might have chosen good, and chose evil. 
Half the sufferings of the present are but the natural 
retributions on neglected opportunities. There was 



346 



OPPORTUNITY AND PREPARATION. 



a time when the utterance of a word, a decisive act, 
the change of a single habit, the avoidance of a temp- 
tation, repentance of a single sin, might have changed 
our whole course. There was a time to have done 
what I wish had been done, but the time has passed 
by ; I have swept along on the rapids beyond the 
green and peaceful haven where I might have land- 
ed ; and it is now too late. There was a time when 
I might have saved a friend or blessed a home, or 
taken a stand in a right way, but the time has 
passed. We had a thousand good purposes to- 
wards others, but the time for executing them went 
by, and now it is too late. We have had a thou- 
sand good purposes for our own lives, but they died 
out ; and where they burned, there is now no spark 
in the ashes. In the case of others, how often has 
death come in to interept the delayed purpose of 
good ! We repent the delay, but we cannot tell the 
dead of our repentance. The lost opportunities 
come not back. We may mourn bitter tears ; but 
in this burial-place of lost opportunities we sit by 
gravestones whose dead rise not again. The lost 
years come not back. Once gone, for ever gone ! 
The past had its tasks, as the future will have its 
tasks. We must meet opportunities at the time, or 
never. The lamps must be trimmed and burning 
when the bridal passes, or we cannot join it and 
enter in, but must be left behind in the outer dark- 
ness. 

And remember that you are no passive spectator 
of the panorama of life, whom opportunities can 
bless, whether you heed them or not. The rains fall 



OPPORTUNITY AND PREPARATION. 



347 



and refresh the earth, though it lie silent and impas- 
sive. But for man not to use opportunities aright, 
is to be mined by them. One great office of reason 
is to see occasions. Instinct warns the animal of 
the appointed hour. The bird flies, prompted by an 
unerring voice, from its southern to its northern 
home. But man must use his reason and watch for 
the appointed hour. 

The greatest opportunities are perhaps those 
which do not go by that name. Sometimes they 
are the trials from which, if possible, we would en- 
tirely escape. The sorrows which call for the great 
virtue of submission, not to be gained except through 
life's severest discipline, the occasions that demand 
forbearance towards our neighbors or self-denial in 
ourselves, the sicknesses, the disappointments, the re- 
verses, the anxieties of life, — all demanding their cor- 
responding virtues, and virtues which could have no 
existence without these trials, — how shall we regard 
them ? However we do regard them, the Christian 
view of them is, that they are opportunities ; — op- 
portunities for gaining what is of priceless worth, 
and what can never be gained without the corre- 
sponding discipline. And the Christian view is the 
nobler one. What a blessed thing for us if we could 
but put aside our selfish weakness, our petty fears, 
our anxiety lest we should lose a pleasure, and 
should say, This trial, hard to be borne perhaps, has 
come to me in the order of God's providence ; I will 
make no moan over a lot which he appoints ; I will 
hear its voice, which calls me into the vineyard, 
though it be to tread the wine-press alone, and I 



348 



OPPORTUNITY AND PREPARATION. 



will cheerfully obey ; now the hour has come which 
is to prove what I am, and with no coward heart it 
shall be mine to do or to bear God's will as he may 
require ! Had we this spirit, we should see that the 
great trials of life are its great opportunities for vir- 
tue. Over the cross we should see the crown ; first 
the trial, and then the triumph. It is a sad thing to 
see men* sutler, but sadder to suffer basely ; and no- 
blest of all it is to suffer nobly, — to see men bravely 
and cheerfully, in any emergency, sacrifice themselves 
for the right. It is in that class of opportunities 
which we call trials, that the heroism of the world is 
to be found. 

But here again the opportunity is lost, unless one 
be prepared to meet it. But how be ready ? We 
cannot foresee when or to what we shall be called. 
We only know that we cannot live long, without 
having every appetite and passion tempted, and 
without having demands made on our justice and 
kindness, our good-will to man and our loyalty to 
heaven. When or how the call may come, we know 
not. And herein lies an essential part of life's disci- 
pline. It is required of us, not merely to perform an 
act, but to have a* character prepared for all acts and 
emergencies. We need a discipline like that of the 
camp, which prepares men alike for attack or de- 
fence, for the night's watch and the day's toil, and 
for all unforeseen exigencies. In exigencies men act 
from the level of the character ; at least no more 
can be relied on. How they meet an opportunity 
depends on what they were before the opportunity 
came. As the reservoir sinks or rises, the fountain 



OPPORTUNITY AND PREPARATION. 



349 



throws its sparkling waters with less force or in 
higher columns towards the sun. So the force 
which has been accumulating in the human heart 
determines the height of opportunity which one can 
meet. 

But how be prepared for the great opportunities 
of life ? There is but one way, and that is through 
fidelity to the duty of the hour. Be it to wait in 
the market-place through the day, be it to watch 
for the coming of the lord at night, be it ever so 
humble or insignificant a thing, — the duty of the 
present hour, to do it, to bring high motives to bear 
on it, to put great principles into the doing of it, to 
obey the law of Almighty God in doing it, — that 
is our only adequate preparation for greater duties 
and severer trials. 

The most impressive and fearful part of this para- 
ble I have not as yet referred to. The foolish vir- 
gins, we read, startled by the call, hasted to find oil 
for their lamps. But the season for preparation was 
gone. It was now too late. The procession of joy 
had passed on, and when they returned, the streets 
were empty, the music silent, and the door was shut. 
It is possible, then, to be too late. Not only is it pos- 
sible, but the whole order of Providence proceeds on 
the idea, that there are not only duties, but seasons 
for them, and that if the season pass by, the duty 
must pass with it. There is no recall of the neglect- 
ed hour. The work of spring must be done in the 
spring, and the work of autumn in the autumn. O 
could we but recall the wasted hours ! we say ; but 
we cannot. In the journey of life we pass through 

30 



350 OPPORTUNITY AND PREPARATION. 



the successive years, as through a succession of halls 
containing the wonders of science and art, obliged 
always to go onward, and forbidden to return. Each 
hall has its own claims on eye and thought, but 
whatever our minds carry from it must be garnered 
up while in it. While within its walls we may do 
as we will ; but we must go on, and as we leave it, 
the door is shut, and we return no more. This irre- 
trievable character of lost opportunities startles us, 
and yet Providence is ever warning us of it. There 
was an hour when the ship might have been saved, 
had not the helmsman slumbered. There was an 
hour when the fate of battle might have been turned, 
had the leader been prompt to see and decide. 
Health, success, hope and despair, turn on these 
decisive hours. And this is true of the spiritual in- 
terests of which the parable treats. There are sea- 
sons when joy calls on man for a grateful obedience, 
or when death, trial, change, arouse him from his 
lethargy. It is God's call to man. If obeyed, it is 
his salvation ; if neglected, the season passes by, and 
whatever may be in the future, so far as that oppor- 
tunity is concerned, the door is shut. 

The parable sets forth the necessity of prepara- 
tion in this life for that which is to come. Each 
day has its duties, which terminate not in themselves, 
but are also a preparation for those which shall fol- 
low. But the day passes, its fidelity or neglect en- 
ters into the records of the past, and the door is shut. 
So it is with life. The Scriptures teach us little 
respecting the particular conditions of the future 
life. Nothing is said to gratify a mere curiosity. 



OPPORTUNITY AISTD PREPARATION. 351 



But in regard to all that is of practical importance 
to us, nothing can be more distinct and decisive. 
Whatever is to be hoped or feared when we enter 
the next world, is connected with a preparation in 
this. There is no severing gulf between. As youth 
prepares for manhood, and manhood for age, so 
this life for the next. And that preparation lies not 
in a few actions, to which we are driven by a dread 
of God's judgments, but, essentially, in the moral 
affections of the heart. When the first Christian 
Emperor of Rome deferred baptism to the last, that, 
cleansed from all sin when it was too late to sin 
more, he might be sure of entering heaven, we see 
the superstition and the error. But they are scarcely 
more absurd than a thousand other expedients by 
means of which men have endeavored to secure sal- 
vation without putting evil out of their hearts. The 
fundamental idea of the Gospel seems to be this, 
that it will be with us according to what we love. 
Death breaks up our transient relations, and delivers 
us over to our spiritual affinities and affections as 
they have been developed in this life. He that loves 
righteousness will have the blessedness of the right- 
eous. They that have here served God with a willing 
heart will then rejoice, with those like themselves, 
in his service. The Apostles who loved the Lord 
expected to be with him. God is Love,, and whoso- 
ever dwelieth in love dwelleth in God. The corrupt, 
the selfish, the debased, the unforgiving, will enter 
the spheres and the employments of those of like 
moral affections with themselves. Thus the only 
preparation for the heavenly felicity is, not the dread 



352 



OPPORTUNITY AND PREPARATION. 



of suffering, nor The love of happiness, but the love 
of what is loved in heaven. And in whatever way. 
be it through penitence or prayer, through labor or 
trial, through suffering borne in submissive trust, or 
duties done, looking for God's approval, we attain 
unto anything of the heavenly spirit, we are prepar- 
ing for heaven. 

The great work appointed for this life is this spirit- 
ual preparation. What the ages of eternity may re- 
veal, we are not competent to tell. But it is clear 
what is the great work of this life, and that, so far 
as the special opportunities for this preparation are 
concerned, those of which we have knowledge close 
with life. Then the door is shut. "We have no au- 
thority to look beyond and to speculate on what 
God's mercy or justice may do, in other worlds -and 
conditions. Revelation fixes our attention on what 
we are to do here, — on the kind of preparation 
necessary to those who embark on that mysterious 
voyage. 

The great question for us all then is, How far 
are we making this preparation ? Days and years 
go by, childhood and youth and manhood fleet 
away, and soon this, to every reasonable person 
who believes in immortality, must be the absorbing 
question. Happy if he answers it before it is too 
late. Put to your hearts those startling questions 
which revealed the characters of those to whom they 
were uttered. Were Christ, this day, to say to us, 
as those of old, Follow thou me ! should we gladly 
follow him, or turn and pass by on the other side ? 
Where he to say, as to his disciple, Lovest thou me ? 



OPPORTUNITY AND PREPARATION. 353 

could we reply, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee ? 
Or were it the summons of death, would it find us 
with lamps trimmed and burning, — ready for the 
coming of the Lord ? 



30* 



SERMON XXV. 



IDLE WOKD8. 

OUT OF THE ABUNDANCE OF THE HEART THE MOUTH SFEAKETH. 
A GOOD MAN OUT OF THE GOOD TREASURE OF THE HEART BRING- 
ETH FORTH GOOD THINGS ; AND AN EVIL MAN, OUT OF THE EVIL 
TREASURE, BRINGETH FORTH EVIL THINGS. BUT I SAT UNTO 
YOU, THAT EVERT IDLE WORD THAT MEN SHALL SPEAK. THET 
SHALL GIVE ACCOUNT THEREOF IN THE DAT OF JUDGMENT. 

Matt. xii. 34-36. 

These are wide-embracing and solemn and fear- 
ful words. If we are ever tempted to think that 
there is exaggeration in them, it may be because we 
do not consider what this gift of speech is. Except 
the mind itself, no gift is more wonderful. Through 
it mind reaches mind, and we are carried out of a 
dumb and silent solitude, and placed in spiritual re- 
lations with one another. It gives to men a bound- 
less mutual influence for evil or good. Consider 
one moment how much is implied in the fact, that 
one mind can hold intelligible intercourse with an- 
other mind. 

A silent, invisible thought is coined into a word, 
and cast forth on the air, and the breath of heaven 
bears it abroad on every side, till the floating sylla- 



IDLE WORDS. 



355 



bles are caught up, and enter a thousand other 
minds, to be again transformed into thought or 
emotion, and to form a part of those minds for ever. 
Who of us has not sometimes felt a thrill of awe 
come over him, when, in some silent assembly, an 
invisible spirit, through these wonderful instrumen- 
talities which God has established, has been making 
itself manifest to his spirit ? He may have closed 
his eyes, but has not, by so doing, escaped its influ- 
ence. The whole atmosphere was repeating the 
words. It was no longer a mere supporter of life, 
but had a new element thrown into it, — the ele- 
ment of thought, which every mind breathed, as the 
lungs breathe the air. And as the body is affected 
by a healthful or tainted atmosphere, so the mind is 
affected by breathing this element of thought. And 
how vast the extent of its influence ! By it, a pas- 
sion or emotion which must otherwise have slum- 
bered and died in the individual heart is cast abroad 
on the winds, and acquires a universal presence. 
By it, one strong soul may communicate itself to 
another, and, spreading in ever-enlarging circles, 
may make the souls of a whole people strong. The 
wisdom of one becomes the wisdom of all, and the 
passions of one the passions of all. The hand can- 
not touch, nor the eye reach, the soul ; but a word — 
a word — can reach it and tempt its weakness, or 
inflame its passions, or breathe through its sorrows 
the very consolations of heaven. 

Surely a power like this gift of speech, by which 
one mind puts itself into contact with all other 
minds, and by a mysterious agency fills them with 



356 



IDLE WORDS. 



its own thoughts and feelings, was not given to be 
lightly used. He who uses it to tempt another 
astray, to inflame his passions, to excite his unjust 
suspicions, to foster his prejudices, to contaminate 
the purity of his thoughts, has done a deadly wrong 
to his fellow-creature, and God declares the magni- 
tude of the guilt when it is said that for every idle 
word which man utters he shall render account in 
the day of judgment. This declaration is not made 
to show for what unimportant things men may be 
judged, but, on the contrary, to show the importance 
of idle words, and to make men sensible how life 
and death are in the words of the lips. By this fear- 
ful sanction God would guard the tongue, because 
of the power of the tongue. 

A sentence of such fearful import as this should 
make us careful to distinguish as to what is meant 
by idle words. It cannot be supposed that our Sav- 
iour intended to forbid the use of all excepting those 
which imply laborious thought, or which concern im- 
portant truths, or which look to some great result. 
He who touched the clouds with light, and filled the 
earth with beauty, and made the healthy exercise of 
all faculties a source of present enjoyment as well 
as of permanent utility, doubtless intended that the 
gift of speech should be employed, not merely for 
the discussion of great truths, but also for the pro- 
motion of all pleasant and kindly feelings between 
man and man. The generous humor that lights up 
the monotony of labor ; the pleasant words which, 
though they be about trivial things, give expression 
to kind feelings ; the seemingly trifling talk which, 



IDLE WORDS. 



357 



from relating to what at the moment concerns us, 
maintains an open frankness between friends and 
associates, — do not come under the description of 
idle words. In truth, they are not in any sense idle, 
but by maintaining an unembarrassed unreserve, 
by the light and shade they give to life, and by 
keeping alive the common sympathies of men in 
regard to those smaller interests which fill up nearly 
all our days, instead of being idle, they often consti- 
tute a most useful part of human intercourse, and 
are not to be dispensed with. "Were the whole of 
our intercourse to be confined to subjects which 
moralists and philosophers are pleased to term great 
ones, the mass of mankind, being neither moralists 
nor philosophers in this sense, would be debarred 
from the privilege of speech. 

But this is not the meaning of the text. By idle 
words, as appears from the whole passage, as well 
as from the original word imperfectly translated 
" idle," are meant injurious, calumnious words, — 
words that are meant to injure, and wound, and ex- 
cite unrighteous prejudice, — often spoken lightly 
and idly perhaps, but leaving wrong and injury be- 
hind them. 

I do not enter into any minute specifications 
respecting the duties or the sins of the tongue. 
What we rather need is to consider the essential 
guilt there is in the injurious words idly scattered 
abroad, and which, though at first seemingly as in- 
significant as the feathered seeds of a noxious plant 
scattered by the winds, may finally bear as disas- 
trous a harvest. If it be considered how idle rumors, 



358 



IDLE WORDS. 



once obtaining currency, may follow one up and 
down, like ghosts, for years ; how a careless sus- 
picion, carelessly uttered, may awake a wide dis- 
trust ; how fixing attention on one failing may 
eclipse a hundred virtues ; how the contemptuous 
words of the proud may crush the courage and con- 
fidence of the self-distrustful ; how unfounded doubts 
about a man's affairs may create the very mischief 
against which it would pretend to guard ; how the 
attributing of bad motives can palsy the best enter- 
prises ; how a readiness to hear and utter words of 
detraction can set families ajar, and break up all 
neighborly relations ; how a man, by inconsiderate 
sarcasms, by readiness to sow suspicion, by a will- 
ingness to make the worst of the failings of others, 
by an anxiety always to turn out to the light the 
slightest rent in an otherwise fair and costly robe 
worn by another, may make his common words like 
the poisonous prickles of the tropical plant, which 
stings and wounds all who touch it ; — if we con- 
sider how much of injustice in action, how much of 
the strife and wrath and bitterness between man 
and man, how much ungrounded suspicion, and 
hard, ungenerous judgment, come from this idle 
speech ; how many friendly actions are cooled and 
chilled, how many good purposes blighted, by them ; 
how words are not, as we sometimes deem them, 
mere vocalized air, but actions, imbued with a 
strange life to propagate themselves ; and how " ill 
deeds are doubled with an evil word " ; — we can- 
not wonder that our Saviour should say that for 
these idle words we must render account in the 
day of judgment. 



IDLE WORDS. 



359 



Of course, it is not understood this that we 
are to make no discriminations between good men 
and bad men, nor that we are to walk blindfold 
through the world, making believe that all is good 
when we know it is not. To do this, to be insensi- 
ble to the superiority of uprightness over dishonesty, 
to make no distinction between worth and baseness, 
is to be treacherous to human virtue. But because 
we see evil, we are not therefore obliged to dwell 
upon it perpetually ; and more, we are to remember 
that he is corrupt far beyond the ordinary limits of 
wickedness, in whom that which is good does not 
far outbalance that which is bad. And if we recog- 
nize the evil, infinitely more it becomes us to recog- 
nize heartily and fully the good. 

But this is not what our Saviour is speaking of. 
It is of injurious words, whether carelessly or inten- 
tionally meant to be injurious. They are so easily 
uttered, that we do not appreciate the essential in- 
justice involved in them, nor their self-perpetuating 
power to injure. If in your dealings you have un- 
awares overstepped the bounds of justice, you can 
entirely repair the wrong, and your good purpose 
and the act of restitution shall make it as if it had 
never been ; but not so with idle words. When 
they have passed your lips, they are beyond your 
control ; they enter into the general language of 
men. What you whispered in a corner, is pro- 
claimed from the house-top. The spark buried 
under the ashes is uncovered by the winds, and 
kindles a conflagration. It is possible that an inju- 
rious suspicion, or a false charge flippantly uttered, 



360 



IDLE WORDS. 



may fall to the ground and perish ; but they do not 
always die out of themselves, and you have no 
right to assume that they w r ill die out at all. Often- 
times they cannot be corrected either by yourself or 
the victim, and, w r hen they have got beyond your 
reach, become the source of evils of which you dread 
but to think. "The smith is weary at his forge, 5 ' 
so readeth the proverb, " and wieldeth the metal 
carelessly, and the anchor breaketh in its bed and 
the vessel foundereth with her crew." A w^ord of 
anger is muttered, engendering the midnight mur- 
der. The calumny w T hich you thought answered 
may reappear again at some crisis in life when no 
answer is possible. It is one of the worst kinds 
of wrong, because it so easily goes out of your 
power to repair the wrong. All censorious speech 
is wicked, because censorious ; all 'careless sus- 
picions are wrong, not only in themselves, but be- 
cause, if unjust, it is difficult to recall them ; and 
all severe judgments, though they be just, should be 
uttered with hesitation and carefulness, because the 
judgment will be remembered ; while the repentance 
of him who is its object may make that which is 
just one day unjust the next. 

But, great as is the mischief of idle words to 
others, a still greater evil recoils on him who utters 
them. There is such a connection between thought 
and speech, that metaphysicians assume that it is 
nearly, and perhaps quite, impossible to think ex- 
cept through the medium of w r ords, unuttered per- 
haps, but still in the mind, and giving form to the 
thought. We are so apt to regard words as the in- 



IDLE WORDS. 



361 



struments of thought, that we do not enough con- 
sider that, in their turn, like the body which is the 
instrument of the mind, they may become its mas- 
ters. The utterance of a thought gives it distinct- 
ness. The simple utterance of it changes the place 
which it occupies in our minds. The utterance of 
a passion inflames the passion. Communities work 
themselves up into a rage, they may hardly know 
about what, through the power of speech. The 
passions which when distributed unuttered in indi- 
vidual hearts were nothing, — were but as the sev- 
eral sparks of fire drawn apart on the winter hearth- 
stone, and which, like them, if let alone, would have 
soon gone out, — by simply being brought together 
and blown upon by the common any kindle and 
spread and blaze. The habit of uttering suspicions 
confirms the suspicious temper. The habit of utter- 
ing denunciatory j udgments envenoms the malignity 
from which they spring. Once begin to utter inju- 
rious words of another, and you are in a manner 
pledged to make them good. You will see what- 
ever he does in the worst light ; you will believe all 
evil things of him. To show that you have not 
wronged him, you will cover the first injury by a 
succession of greater injuries ; and at length it will 
be easier for your victim to forgive you, than for you 
to cease from injuring him. The habit of frivolous 
words fosters frivolous habits of mind ; and on the 
contrary, kindness, justice, truthfulness in speech, 
strengthen kindness, justice, and truth in principle. 
Thoughts and words act and react on each other. 
Words are like the leaves of the forest, which draw 

31 



362 



IDLE WORDS. 



up their life and nourishment from the soil beneath, 
but in turn fall and decay and enrich the soil from 
which they sprung. 

There is another evil from idle words which is still 
less considered. We warn the young against the 
society of the corrupt and depraved, and the great 
reason is, that the custom of witnessing evil deadens 
the moral sensitiveness which repels it. The habit 
of dwelling on the faults of our neighbors has pre- 
cisely the same tendency, and it does not matter 
much that we do it for the purpose of condemning 
them. The habit of occupying the mind with them, 
as we must when we make them the subject of our 
words, is almost of necessity debasing. The man 
who, in a bad spirit, is constantly dwelling on the 
defects and vices of others, and not on their virtues, 
may be sure that he is disciplining his mind to adopt 
easily and willingly, if he be tempted, the same de- 
fects and vices. I suppose that all experience shows 
that it is not safe to trust a man on those points 
about which he is habitually censorious in regard to 
others. I am not speaking here of any just judg- 
ments of men, but of the censorious spirit which 
loves to dwell on the evil which is in other men, 
and to make the worst of it ; and I say that it is 
precisely on those points where their words are loud- 
est and most censorious, that they are themselves 
least to be trusted if they are tempted. And one 
cause of it — not the only, but one cause of it — is, 
that the mind becomes assimilated to that which, 
with the love of dwelling on it, it dwells upon. No, 
for your own soul's health, while you are faithful in 



IDLE WORDS. 



363 



moral discriminations, dwell as little as may be on 
the corruption and depravity of mankind, and if it 
be spoken of, let not a bad temper, but justice and 
kindness, rule your tongue. 

But how govern the tongue ? There is only one 
rule of any worth, and that is suggested by the first 
part of the text :* " Out of the abundance of the 
heart the mouth speaketh." Whatever engrosses 
the thoughts will more or less find its way out 
into words ; and, except for the mischief that it does 
to others, it is well that it should, — well for the 
sake of one's truth and self-consistency ; and well, 
that the evil thoughts may come out in a form 
which shall subject one to their legitimate retribu- 
tion. Those prudential maxims about guarding the 
tongue which do not take into account the state of 
the heart, — maxims which do not require the correc- 
tion of the inward evil, but only teach how to avoid 
the penalty, — words which allow the heart to be 
corrupt, and which only seek to make the utterance 
fair, — corruption within, the marble sepulchre with- 
out, — these prudent maxims do not meet the case. 
There is but one rule for governing the tongue of 
any worth, and that is to govern the heart. Say 
what you have to say, but see to it that you have 
no thoughts which it is wrong to utter. Keep jus- 
tice and truth and reverence towards God and good- 
will towards men in your heart, and your words will 
be well enough, and all the better the less you think 
of them. Keep the fountain pure, and the stream 
which flows from it will hardly fail to be pure. 

And why should not we expect to render account 



364 



IDLE WORDS. 



of our idle words ? Our words are deeds, with 
which as deadly blows may be struck as with the 
armed hand. They are the embodiments of thought, 
they spring out of the depths of the passions and the 
affections, and give to that which otherwise would 
slumber in our bosoms a life beyond our life. And 
they are as potent for good as for harm. The child 
that habitually utters pleasant words out of a pleas- 
ant and loving heart is the sunshine of a household. 
The man who has no power to act may through his 
words awaken all around him to benignant and 
blessed thoughts, or pour poison into the ears of all 
who approach him. The habits of society, in re- 
gard to the subjects which are discussed and the 
methods of discussing them, will in time powerfully 
affect both the mental and moral character of its 
members. Different stages of civilization are not 
more different, than are the levels of social inter- 
course in the same community. The climates of 
the globe do not vary more than do these social cli- 
mates. In one region, the lightest and the gravest 
discourse tends in its final influence to diffuse friend- 
ly and humane and reverential feelings, and to give 
authority to those truths on which man's welfare de- 
pends. And in another region, the lightest and the 
gravest discourse tends alike to foster selfishness 
and low views of life, and faithlessness in man and 
duty and Providence. The ancient faith, that there 
were words which held in them a charm powerful 
enough to stir the regions of the dead, and to com- 
pel spirits to obey the behests of men, was not all 
fancy. There is no one of us who may not every 



IDLE WORDS. 



365 



day utter words able to evoke spirits that we have 
more reason to fear than those that gathered around 
the trench which the magician opened under the 
starless night ; or which do not call down blessed 
angels whose presence is a benediction. The at- 
mosphere which supports animal life the Creator has 
caused to bathe with its vital and healthful waves 
the earth ; but that atmosphere which the soul 
breathes is made vital with affection and passion by 
ourselves, and, according as we will, becomes the 
atmosphere of life, or is loaded with deadly vapors, 
in which, as a light let down into a well, our moral 
life goes out. The tongue is a little member, saith 
the Apostle, but therewith may we bless God, and 
therewith may we curse men which are made after 
the similitude of God. It is a little member, but 
behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth, and 
the tongue which gives utterance to an unrighteous 
spirit is a fire, a world of iniquity ; — so is the tongue 
among our members that it defileth the whole body, 
and setteth on fire the course of nature, and it is set 
on fire of hell. When evil, it is an unruly evil, full 
of deadly poison. Who, he says, is a wise man, 
and imbued with knowledge among you, let him 
show out of a good conversation his works with 
meekness and wisdom. They are words to which 
we may well give heed. We never regret to have 
kept silence when unkindness or anger has prompt- 
ed us to speak. We never regret that an injurious 
word was checked, and the injurious thought which 
prompted it cast out. Keep a guard over your heart, 
that you may guard your tongue, that you may not 

31 # 



366 



IDLE WORDS. 



utter those irritating words which leave scars be- 
tween friends, nor those censorious words which 
injure your neighbors. Keep a guard over your 
heart, that with your lips you may utter those 
words which cheer the desponding and encourage 
the weak, and which promote justice and charity 
and truth, and a reverential trust in Him who de- 
mands the service both of the lips and the heart. 



SERMON XXVI. 



THE PKESSURE OF DUTIES. 

AND MOSES SAID, WHO AM I THAT I SHOULD GO UNTO PHARAOH, 
AND THAT I SHOULD BEING FORTH THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL 

out of egtpt 1 — Exodus iii, 11. 

Moses shrank from the burden of duty laid upon 
him. He would gladly have excused himself. It 
seemed heavier than he could bear. In this he was 
the representative of a common feeling. In seasons 
of weariness and despondency, men often feel as if 
the claims which duty makes upon them were more 
than they could meet. They lose confidence. They 
are oppressed with a sense of incompetency. There 
is a mountain before them. There is a lion in the 
path. They wish that they could escape responsi- 
bility. They long to be away, — long for some con- 
dition where "the burden of care shall be less, — 
where less shall depend on what they do or leave 
undone. But the labors finished at night return 
again with the morning. There is no escape from 
duty. The pleasures of the child are cut across by 
its more serious tasks. The quiet of the man is 
broken up by incessantly returning and inexorable 
responsibilities. 



368 



THE PKE5SURE 01 DUTIES. 



This pressure of duties ! At times it may be the 
joy of. life, at times it is its despair ; but always it 
forms a part of the plan of Providence. Whether 
we will or no, we cannot escape from them. Ordi- 
narily we may not wish to : but in seasons of dis- 
couragement, it is good for us to see how that 
which is for the time our burden is notwithstanding 
a wise and merciful arrangement of Providence. 
How shall one who feels this pressure of duties, 
who is discouraged and wearied and anxious and 
despondent, view them ? 

1. It is a very imperfect and low estimate of them, 
and yet one not to be omitted, to say that they are 
essential as the protection of human innocence and 
virtue. They occupy the mind, and so shut the gates 
against temptation ; they also brace and invigorate 
the moral powers, so that they can resist it. It was 
in the quiet of Paradise, its freedom from care and 
responsibility, that our first parents were so easily 
overcome. They had nothing to do but to think of 
the temptation, and so were made its victims. The 
first reform of the monasteries, in the early ages of 
the Church, consisted in introducing a regular rou- 
tine of labor, and on the principle, as it was ex- 
pressed by one of the fathers, that, if the occupied 
man is tempted by one devil, the unoccupied is be- 
set by a thousand. Work was as needful as prayer, 
simply as a means of moral protection. Lift off from 
any community the pressure of its active duties, and 
no reasonable man would dare to live in it. That 
immense activity with which the human heart is 
charged must find outlet somehow, and if there be 



THE PRESSURE OF DUTIES. 



369 



no serious duties to be performed, this vital activity 
of man would be his ruin. Poets have pictured the 
Isles of the Blest, where — the more burdensome 
duties of life over — untrammelled pleasures return 
fresh with each successive day. It was a pleasing 
fancy, but the reality would be unendurable. Man 
was not made to enjoy passively, but to enjoy 
through action. Such an Elysium of idle self- 
indulgence would involve the lethargy, if not the 
perversion, of all the higher qualities of man, and 
the extinction of that higher felicity which the un- 
satisfied might seek in its sun-lighted realm. 

There can be no greater calamity than to be re- 
lieved of duty. Better stand guard every night, 
better wear the body out in watchings and priva- 
tions, better know nothing but ceaseless self-denial, 
if it can only be in the way of duty, than a life so 
treed from serious responsibilities as to leave room 
only for self-indulgence. Though the burden may 
sometimes be heavy to bear, blessed are they whose 
lives are made serious and useful by the performance 
of duty, and whose hearts are protected by the con- 
sciousness of ever-present responsibilities which can- 
not be set aside. 

2. But man has not need merely of moral protec- 
tion. He is subject to trials and sorrows, and needs 
help and solace ; and they are best found in the 
faithful and religious discharge of duty. Sometimes 
the feeling seems to exist that respect for the dead, 
when we have lost some dear friend, requires that 
we should seclude ourselves from the world, and sit 
down amidst the memorials of bereavement, and 



370 



THE PRESSURE OP DUTIES. 



dwell on what has been lost, — a feeling that the 
thought of the living is sacrilege toward the de- 
parted. The course of David has seemed to me as 
admirable as it was natural. " While the child was 
yet alive," he says, " I fasted and wept, for I said, 
Who can tell whether God will be gracious unto me 
that the child may live ? But now he is dead, 
wherefore should I fast ? Can I bring him back 
again ? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to 
me." Did he forget his child ? We may be sure 
that it was not lost out of that heart, 1 so full of 
all tender affections and emotions. But from the 
child's grave he went at once forth again to his 
duties. 

The religious performance of duty is the natural 
and healthy consolation of sorrow. In any real and 
great affliction, the mind is brought very near to the 
spiritual world. He who giveth and who taketh 
away seems almost visibly present in our homes. 
All the great spiritual realities, at other times often 
so vague, appear real to our quickened perceptions. 
If I could take you back to any season of deep 
affliction, you would probably say that you then 
had a more vivid sense of the Divine presence, that 
you saw more clearly the true ends of life, that your 
purest and best affections were awakened, and that 
you were moved to dedicate yourself more faithfully 
to the highest interests of all with whom you had to 
do. They were not sad but blessed hours, when from 
the lonely mount of sorrow you had this more just 
view of life. What shall retain this sense of the 
Divine presence ? It is not inactive contemplation, 



THE PRESSURE OF DUTIES. 



371 



but the going forth with a high and Christian pur- 
pose, to discharge the duties which God lays upon 
you, to perform them as his work. Every duty thus 
performed will be an embodied prayer. It will bring 
you into the very presence of God. It will keep 
actively alive the spirit of trust and submission, that 
spirit which finds in itself, or which opens the heart 
to receive, the highest consolation. It is not mere 
thinking about God that brings us near to him, any 
more than mere day-dreamins: about friends draws 
us nearer to them ; but that which draws us near to 
Him is the faithful, patient, religious discharge of 
the duties He lays upon us ; and there will be con- 
solation in sorrow, as distinguished from mere grow- 
ing insensibility, almost exactly proportioned to this 
trusting, obedient, submissive sense of the Divine 
presence. 

Blessed to the afflicted, for another reason, is the 
pressure of duties. Sorrow is not necessarily nor 
naturally selfish. It naturally opens the heart to all 
kind and sympathetic and merciful impulses. But 
if, deserting the appointed path of God, I sit down 
in inaction to brood over what is lost, if I thus cher- 
ish the thought of my affliction, it will speedily be- 
come selfish. My sad thoughts may be to me as if 
I held coals of fire to my heart ; but a way of think- 
ing which shuts out the consideration of others, and 
which makes myself the centre of the world, though 
it be caused by grief, will inevitably make me self- 
ish. Almighty God, as the fitting counterpoise of 
this danger, has surrounded us with these pressing 
and imperative duties which connect us with others. 



372 



THE PRESSURE OF DUTIES. 



If I sit down with my own sad thoughts, I am filled 
with the consciousness of my own afflictions ; but 
scarce a duty can be proposed which does not in- 
stantly carry my thoughts abroad to others. All the 
great duties of life connect us with others, with a 
family, with kindred, with friends, with enemies, 
with society. So long as we are engaged in them, 
any selfishness of grief must be very much set aside. 
The self-denying, just, and generous principles are 
called into action, while the ever-recurring thoughts 
of bereavement only give a certain sanctity to the 
duties on which we are engaged. And thus the 
best consolation of sorrow becomes also the best 
preservation of the disinterested, as well as of the 
devout affections. 

3. But this pressure of duty is not merely the pro- 
tection of innocence and the consolation of sorrow ; 
it is the discipline appointed by God for the develop- 
ment of virtue. We constantly hear the question, 
What are the processes through which 'a right char- 
acter before God is formed ? There is among us 
infinite self-criticism, and the endeavor to shape and 
mould and give direction to the character through 
some direct action. It sometimes seems to be 
thought that one can mould his character as the 
artist chisels a statue. I believe that there is much 
exaggeration in these views, that, on the contrary, 
the true method of self-formation is comparatively 
to forget self anchself-improvement in simple devo- 
tion to the duties of one's lot. Let us consider this 
point a little more at length. 

The idea of self-culture has been with us a favor- 
ite one. It seems to accord with our Northern 



THE PRESSURE OF DUTIES. 



373 



habits of self-dependence and calculating forecast. 
No doubt, in many respects, it is a just idea. In a 
certain sense, self-culture ought reasonably to be a 
great end of life. But this by no means implies or 
requires that a man shall be perpetually thinking of 
this end. On the other hand, nothing so surely 
defeats it. If it is as an end to be kept steadily be- 
fore the mind, I infinitely prefer, as more practical 
and more true, the declaration of the catechism, that 
the chief end of man is to glorify God. 

All moral self-culture that can be successful, re- 
quires much oblivion of one's self. A true moral 
self-culture is a development of qualities which re- 
quire, not self-consciousness, but a perpetual self- 
denial and postponement of one's self to something 
higher and truer and better. Justice is disinter- 
ested ; the love of truth is disinterested ; rectitude 
in every form is disinterested, — requires that per- 
sonal interests shall be made subordinate to some- 
thing higher, — disinterested, not in the sense of 
being unimportant to our true interests, but in re- 
quiring that man shall act with reference to princi- 
ples which make him for the time self-forgetful of 
personal advantages. 

The culture of these principles is moral self-cul- 
ture. And it is carried on not by turning the 
thoughts inward, and trying experiments on one's 
self. Of this nothing comes, but some feeble imita- 
tive sentimentalisms of justice and beneficence and 
piety. But the method of self-culture appointed by 
Providence is to think little of one's self in any way, 
giving up the heart and thought to the performance 

32 



374 



THE PRESSURE OF DUTIES. 



of duty. Go and do justly ; go and act out mercy ; 
walk humbly and reverently before God, and you 
will gain self-culture, though you know not the 
meaning of the words ; and very likely all the better 
because you do not know their meaning. 

It is because a true moral self-culture is a great 
end of man's life on earth, that God has surrounded 
us with such a pressure of duties. They constitute 
His school for man, — not opened for a few hours in 
a day, not interrupted by long vacations, but com- 
mencing at the beginning of life, and terminating* 
only with its close. Our contrivances for moral self- 
culture, our ingenious speculations about it. are 
comparatively of little moment. The arguments to 
enforce its importance are of comparatively little 
moment. Providence does not leave so important a 
matter to our accidental judgments about its utility. 
He puts us into a wise and beneficently arranged 
school at the outset. We may be, because we are 
free, unfaithful ; but He puts us into a school, and 
keeps us there, whether we think of it or not, and 
surrounds us by teachers who never weary; — and 
these teachers are duties, which on every side lay 
their demands upon us. We may make this school 
more or less profitable, — here is our free agency, — 
but the essential elements, even when they are not 
learned, are taught to all. 

And it is in this fact that we discover an explana- 
tion of another fact, — that we are almost as likely 
to find the higher elements of character in one con- 
dition of life as another. We wonder sometimes at 
seeing high virtues — that is, a high moral self-cul- 
ture — in very exposed conditions. But the truth is, 



THE PRESSURE OF DUTIES. 



375 



that they whom man has deserted, and either made 
or left to be miserable, God has not forsaken. 

The mother who in loneliness and penury watch- 
es over her sick child, the father who denies himself, 
who gi\~es up perilous habits, who avoids disreputa- 
ble acts lest his wrong-doing should harm his chil- 
dren, — they are both in an efficient school of self- 
culture. The little boy in the street who with 
watchful labor gathers up a few farthings a day, 
and, spending nothing on his own pleasures, carries 
all home, that a destitute mother may have means 
to buy bread for still younger children, is not only 
in a school of self-culture, but is learning blessed 
lessons every day. 

The poor emigrant who lays aside the earnings 
of months that she may send them to her distant 
home, for the help of parents and brothers and sis- 
ters in their necessity, little as she may have learned 
in human schools, has learned at least one noble 
lesson in the great school of Providence. These 
persons, and so it is in all other conditions of life, 
attain virtues by practising them. They use the 
strength they have, and gain more by its use, — 
the one talent becomes ten. By the eternal law of 
Heaven, to him that hath, and uses well what he 
hath, is given. 

It is one of the real misfortunes of what we think 
to be the happier lot, that prosperity and helping 
friends, and too abundant pleasures, enable us to 
escape the best means and methods of self-culture, 
— enable us to be truants in the school of Provi- 
dence, to throw on others the labors and self-denials 
which we ought to consider our most blessed privi- 



376 



THE PRESSURE OF DUTIES. 



lege. That prosperity has been no blessing which 
has made one feel less the pressure of any serious 
duty. In vain do we try to substitute easier and 
softer methods of self-culture. Our schools, our 
meditations, our exhortations, are vain, are no sub- 
stitutes, though they may be aids, of those meth- 
ods of self-improvement which Providence supplies. 
Nothing answers, but doing the duties that God 
lays on us. And when a happier lot furnishes the 
means of general culture, and thus develops all the % 
sensibilities, instead of its being more safe to sit 
down in passive self-indnlgence, it is only more 
perilous. 

Think it not hard, then, that this pressure of du- 
ties weighs on you sometimes heavily. Trouble 
yourself not about their amount, but let the energy 
so often exhausted in repinings be expended in ef- 
forts to accomplish good and useful ends. 

Thank God, that when you wake at morning, you 
know that there is not an hour in the day which 
will not be crowded with claims not easily put 
aside. Thank God, that you have pressing and im- 
perious duties. If at any time you find they are 
more than your strength, do not bemoan that fact. 
Even if they must all be done, and life and strength 
are exhausted in the doing, there are worse ways of 
dying than by the performance of duty. But the 
truth is, there is no occasion for this. In such cases, 
the highest, and sometimes the hardest duty, is to 
give up plans and labors which were once duties, 
but have ceased to be so for you, — the hard duty 
to a conscientious person, for the time, of doing 
nothing, — the duty of waiting instead of acting. 



THE PRESSURE OF DUTIES. 



377 



In ordinary life, it is not the duties which properly 
belong to us which create an occasion of martyr- 
dom. Ordinarily, Providence intends that men shall 
live, rather than die, for duty. But if, as may very 
likely be the case, duties press too heavily, discrim- 
inate ; put aside the secondary duties, the artificial 
claims that grow up with an artificial society, and 
which, at the best, must hold a very subordinate 
place in a well-ordered life. If anything be set 
aside, let it be these, and dedicate yourself to the 
great duties of your position. Give yourself up to 
them, for their performance will be your soul's life. 
If such duties do not exist, find them, or make 
them. Have enough to do that is worth the doing. 
Make it impossible for you to spend a day without 
doing much that is for the happiness and welfare of 
others. Be no cumberer of the ground. Look for 
the protection of innocence, look for the solace of 
affliction, look for the growth of virtue and piety, 
to the faithful, strenuous, religious performance of 
the duties that belong to yon. Of old, the fire came 
down from heaven to" consume the offering as soon 
as it was laid upon the altar. It is in the perform- 
ance of duty that God now meets man. 

The altar on which we lay the accepted sacrifice, 
is that on which we surrender our wishes to the 
Divine will. In every true purpose of duty, heaven 
and earth are brought into contact. The soul opens 
itself and receives holy influences. Through the 
duty required, God is communicating his best bless- 
ings to man, and through the duty performed, man 
draws nearest to God. 

32* 



SERMON XXVII. 



CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 

I TRUST IN THE MERCY OF GOD, FOR EVER AND EVER. — Psalm 

lii. 8. 

YEA, THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF 
DEATH, I WILL FEAR NO EVIL ; FOR THOU ART WITH ME ; THY 
ROD AND THY STAFF THEY COMFORT ME, — Psalm Xxiii. 4. 

The language of David is the expression of un- 
bounded confidence in God. It is a reasonable 
confidence, founded on just conceptions of the Di- 
vine Providence. For what is this Being ? He 
filleth immensity. We look behind and before, and 
the mind finally rests ever on him, the High and 
Holy One who inhabiteth eternity ! And yet he, 
by whom all things subsist, cares for all by car- 
ing for each. As the light of his sun shines into 
the humblest dwelling not less than into the highest 
palace, so his providence reaches all and each. His 
will moves these starry worlds which retreat before 
the gaze into immensity ; and he hears the sighings 
of the lowliest heart that go up from the earth. Those 
who are forgotten by man are remembered by God. 

And He reveals himself. Behind the thin screen 



CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 



379 



of this material world, the otherwise overwhelming 
brightness of the Infinite Majesty is partially con- 
cealed ; and yet, at the same time, the brightness 
tempered to our vision, partially revealed, — not tran- 
siently, but constantly, through those laws whose en- 
ergy lies in his living will, — revealed not in some 
local human language merely, but in a language 
which can never become dead or obsolete, in univer- 
sal laws and providential arrangements which ever 
speak of him. Nay, lest we should deify this ma- 
terial order, he has condescended to the infirmities 
of men, and by direct interposition has showed his 
sovereignty over the world. From the clouded glory, 
He who ordinarily veils himself behind the order of 
his works has come down in front of his laws, and 
in the miracles of his Son has compelled us to recog- 
nize the author of the perpetual miracle of the uni- 
verse. Through his Son he has revealed what 
nature but imperfectly discloses, his paternal care. 
The Gospel is a revelation of the merciful Providence 
of that awful Power whose sovereignty stretches 
over the creation. Wherever we look, to the heav- 
ens above or the earth beneath, we behold the mani- 
festations of One in whom we live and move and 
have our being. Well may our unworthy and sin- 
ful hearts be still with awe, when we think of that 
awful Power in whose presence we stand. 

It is obvious, that any plan of life which leaves 
out of it the idea of the moral Governor of the world 
must be wrong, — any habits of thought or feeling 
which are not more or less colored and controlled by 
this great truth must be defective. For what is 



380 



CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 



man? A creature of yesterday, with foresight enough 
to be aware of the opening destinies before him, but 
not enough to foresee what they shall be, — encom- 
passed by abysses of mystery that he cannot fathom, 
while moves over him and around him that Power 
which is the life of all that exists. To that Power 
he is united, by his weakness and dependence, and 
united in a still more fearful way, by that accounta- 
ble nature which makes him responsible to the moral 
Sovereign of the world. What then should be the 
sentiments which I ought to cherish toward God ? 
As I look back over the past, I am compelled to ac- 
knowledge, however little I may feel it, that my life 
has been loaded with undeserved blessings. From 
the time that the child is laid in the cradle, till the 
aged man is borne on the bier to his grave, the sun- 
shine and the air are not more constant than those 
blessings which come, not through casual, but fixed 
arrangements of Providence, — enjoyments seemingly 
needless, superinduced upon utility, every right ex- 
ercise of any faculty a source of pleasure, the sins of 
men overruled so as to work out unintended good, — 
a mercy most patient and most pitiful, which would 
reclaim all who go astray, which blesses man on the 
earth almost in spite of himself, and reveals a higher 
and holier world, which, little as the best may de- 
serve to enter it, is promised to the weakest and the 
humblest who strive in their place to walk in the 
paths of duty. This infinite beneficence of the Cre- 
ator, this unbounded goodness, showered like light 
over the dark earth and into the darkness of human 
hearts, — for this, what shall we render unto God ? 



CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 



381 



We can render nothing ; and all that he asks is, 
that we shall not be insensible to it. Let our morn- 
ing and our nightly prayer then be, " Save us, O 
God, from the sin of the thankless heart ; save us 
from the guilt of remembering everything else and 
forgetting thee." "We can return nothing to Him 
who giveth all. May we at last, when life draws to 
a close, be able to feel that in the midst of our bless- 
ings we were mindful of their magnitude and of 
their source ; and may we be able also to remember 
that these blessings were not all used for selfish ends, 
but were the source of happiness and of good to those 
who knew more of the deprivations and less of the 
enjoyments of life than we. 

But the mind cannot stop here. This Being who 
is above me is not only the centre of the material, 
but of the moral, order of the world. The true wel- 
fare and blessedness of all orders of existences, from 
those on earth to the highest seraphim, depend upon 
conformity to the controlling law of holiness and 
love. I cannot be an exception. Obedience to the 
will of God is the peace and blessedness of the uni- 
verse. Shall I struggle against his law ? Shall I 
think it hard, that it has been revealed for the - gov- 
ernment of man ? No ; I will rejoice in the law of 
the Lord. My sins even, and my fears, shall not 
suffer me to forget that my greatest privilege is to 
have revealed to me the character and the will of 
God. There are many things respecting which we 
may easily rest in ignorance ; but to be in ignorance 
of the character and will of God is to extinguish 
every light above the sea, and every hope in the 



382 



CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 



heart of man. My sins, my shortcomings, my 
many errors and wanderings, may well make me 
tremble before the law of Infinite Holiness. But 
I will not wish that the holiness of the universe 
should be lowered, in order that I may sin without 
fear. I will rejoice in the law of the Lord ; — rejoice 
that it guides me safely when I would walk in a 
right way, and that it alarms me with no unfounded 
apprehensions when I depart from moral rectitude. 

But more than this, we should find in this the 
supreme law of life. There is one thing which in- 
cludes in itself all other good, and that is the Divine 
approval. Let me seek this with singleness of heart, 
let- me be able to feel that the course which I take is 
one which the Infinite Goodness shall look down 
upon with an approving eye, and what higher than 
this can I desire, and with this, what shall I greatly 
fear ? Though enemies compass me about, though 
the floods go over my soul, trusting in Thee, I will 
fear no evil. 

Again, with this habitual sense of the Divine pres- 
ence and care, the trials of life are lightened. That 
cloud which, drifting alone in the heavens, was so 
black, when seen in the light of a merciful Provi- 
dence shines with celestial radiance. Even that 
trial to which all are called, the loss of kindred and 
of friends, changes its character when we see it in 
connection with God. We speak of the consola- 
tions of sorrow. I believe we often mistake as to 
their true nature. And many, from personal experi- 
ence of the little peace which is to be derived from 
the common topics of comfort, imagine that there is 



CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 



383 



no consolation save in time and in forgetfulness. It 
is certainly an infinite boon to have the assurance, 
when we bear a friend to the grave, that all is not 
there, that nothing is there that we love, — to know 
that, while we restore the dust to its kindred dust, 
the spirit has been taken up to its God. But multi- 
tudes have believed in the doctrine of an immortal 
life, and have found but little comfort in it when 
they look down into the grave. Not that this faith 
is powerless, even to them. Far away, from behind 
the distant horizon of mortality, dawns the light of 
immortal hope ; but it is distant, and now there is 
separation, and the craving sense of loss and be- 
reavement. Consolation comes chiefly, not from 
truths offered from without, but from the state of 
the heart within. It shines not upon our outward 
eyes, but the dayspring rises within the soul, and 
the true consolation may be described in a single 
sentence. It consists in a profound habitual sense 
of the Divine presence, and a trusting submission to 
His will. Where this exists, there is such an open- 
ing of the heart in confidence to God, such reliance, 
that in the midst of the deepest affliction, and in the 
midst of tears, there is peace, — peace such as the 
Saviour himself had in the season of his trial. 

If we look on a friend's departure separate from 
all his spiritual relations, — look on it as an isolated 
event, — if we forget God and remember only our- 
selves, — it is the dreariest as well as the saddest 
spectacle on which the heavens look. Under the fair 
sky, in the midst of this open world, one that loved 
and was loved feebly pants forth his life. Separa- 



384 



CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 



tion, loss, tears, the grave, and bleeding hearts and 
wounded affections and broken ties, are words which 
but feebly represent the thoughts which close around 
that scene. But this is not to see death as it is ; it 
is like looking at the sky and forgetting that in itls 
a sun. In that chamber of mourning there is the 
presence of one who is invisible. He is present 
there, — He whose love is wiser and more compassion- 
ate than yours, — and all this takes place in accord- 
ance with his wise and merciful law. Through the 
ministries of his providence, He is calling one away 
dear to him as to you. Slowly and painfully the 
thread of life is unloosed ; slowly and painfully the 
spirit separates itself from its mortal dwellings ; but 
God is there, and it is his hand ; at length there 
remains visible to you only the closed eyes and still 
features of death. But were your eyes couched, 
so that you might look in on immortal scenes, you 
should behold the one you loved freed from the 
burden of the flesh, already with purer and holier 
beings ; you should behold that infinite care still 
sheltering the departed, as it shelters those who re- 
main, with a love uniting those on earth and those 
in heaven. In the hour of sorrow we may say, It is 
God's hand, it is his presence. And when the heart 
can truly say, I trust in Thee, I resign to Thee that 
which was so loved, I commit my own feeble and 
faltering heart to Thee, — in that self-surrender to 
God, in that alliance of the child with the Infinite 
Parent, in that trusting faith which in the hour of 
death sees, not chiefly the body, but the soul loosen- 
ing itself from its mortal frame, — sees the presence 



CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 



385 



of Him who not only gave, but is taking away, — 
there is a consolation which all the darkness of the 
grave and the transient separations of death cannot 
extinguish. 

And we too must pass through the same scene ; 
and what shall give us support, and enable us to 
meet with self-collected composure that hour ? If 
the mind retain its full activity, and is aware of 
what is taking place, but one thing, — trust in God. 
David has expressed the profoundest experience of 
human nature, when he declares its true support in 
the season of death. " Though I pass through the 
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for 
Thou art with me." In that hour my strength shall 
fail ; my friends may stand around me, but their help 
is in vain ; they may watch my closing eyes, they 
may bear my body to the grave, but there the ten- 
derest affections leave me. But there is one Being- 
still with me. He was with me in health, he was 
with me in unnumbered blessings. He made those 
around me dear to me. In every conceivable way 
he has given me assurance, such as no earthly 
parent gives a child, of his goodness. He is still 
with me, and as the body fails, the spirit only be- 
comes more conscious of his presence. Shall I 
not trust in him ? I may doubt the wisdom and 
beneficence of man, but if there be anything of 
which I am certain, it is that God wishes nothing 
but good to anything which he has created. To 
secure their highest good, he may lead them through 
the discipline of trial, and save them from the per- 
manent ruin of sin by the ministry of suffering; but 

33 



386 



CONFIDENCE IN GOD, 



still I know that in all he wishes for nothing but the 
good of his creatures. Shall I not trust in him ? 
Yea, though I go through the valley of the shadow of 
death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. I 
need not fear to go where God leadeth. Give to 
me the penitent heart and the will submissive to 
his, and I need not fear. I wall commit myself to 
him, and say, " Thy will be done." 

In this I believe lies the higher spiritual peace 
which attends the departure of the good. It is 
sometimes said, as if it were surprising, that the last 
hours of nearly all men are composed. I think to a 
considerable extent it is true, and not surprising, but 
that it rather illustrates the merciful providence of 
God. In that last hour, when it is too late to do any- 
thing, God seems to save man from apprehensions 
that can now lead to no action. 

If the disease has been brief and sudden, nature 
often supplies the opiate of feverish bewilderment 
and pain. If the disease has been long, the person 
has been descending, step by step, a long way, to- 
ward the tomb, and, exhausted and spent, the last 
step seems little more than any which preceded. 
But it would be a great mistake to suppose, except 
in cases of sudden death, that the last hour comes 
unanticipated and without any previous struggle. 
While as yet nothing has been said, while you have 
feared that the sick man was ignorant of his condi- 
tion, he has very probably been sounding the depths 
of his soul, and asking himself whether he is ready 
to die. The struggle is not in the last hour, but long 
before, in seasons of silent and lonely watchings. 



CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 



387 



Pleasant words of friendly greeting were upon the 
lip ; but in the heart, the overshadowing, unspoken 
thoughts of God, and death, and eternity, — thoughts 
that were unuttered save in the silent prayers of the 
heart to the Creator. There was the struggle and 
the conflict, — there the parting in the solitary heart 
with the fair scenes and the loved companions to be 
left behind on the earth, — - there, through weeks and 
months, perhaps, the silent preparation for the last 
hour ; and when at the end of that, for the first time, 
the dying man has asked you whether he should re- 
cover, you have trembled to answer him the truth, 
that he could not ; and yet that answer, instead of 
agitating him, probably gave him more elevated 
calmness. And the reason was, that he had pre- 
pared himself for the answer. And when this se- 
cret history of the heart is unveiled to you, you find 
that this preparation has consisted, almost solely, in 
a single thing, in a surrender of one's self to God. 
The sick man has said, in the soberness of the heart 
in the presence of death, "I commit myself to Thee; 
I trust in Thee." He may be conscious of frailties 
and sins, — he has implored the Divine forgiveness ; 
but one thought has risen above all other thoughts, 
— "I trust myself in the hands of God." 

I do not mean to say that the whole of a religious 
life can be compressed into this point, or that, while 
one lives all his days regardless of God, it is suffi- 
cient if in his last hour he should think of him; but I 
want to illustrate the point, that, in the great emer- 
gencies of life, experience shows that peace, com- 
posure, and hope come from a trusting submission 



388 



CONFIDENCE IN GOD. 



to the Divine will, — - a submission which says from 
the heart, " Thy will be done," — a submission that 
disposes one to do or bear cheerfully whatever God 
may appoint. And I refer to such cases only to 
show, that this principle which meets the wants of 
the soul in its severest trials should be the controlling 
principle of life. Everything teaches us that the 
state we are to seek is that of an habitual trusting 
reverence for the Divine will. A soul that has at- 
tained to this state, though it still may be clogged 
with many infirmities, has attained to the highest 
peace of earth and of heaven, for it is at peace with 
God. It is that state which we should most wish 
for ourselves and our friends. 

I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me ! Even 
while we deserve his punishments, we will trust in 
the goodness of the Lord. In the midst of our bless- 
ings we will remember that it is God that "leadeth 
us along the green pastures and beside the still wa- 
ters." If doubt and perplexity beset us, may we 
follow confidently the guiding hand of God. And 
while we live, may we cherish such a spirit that, 
when, as all must soon, we go down the dark valley 
of the shadow of death, we may take up the words 
of the Psalmist, and say, " I will fear no evil, for 
Thou art with me." 



THE END. 



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